Overdose effect of aconite containing Ayurvedic Medicine (‘Mahashankha Vati’)

PubMed Central

Panda, Ashok Kumar; Debnath, Saroj Kumar

2010-01-01

There are chances that the use of larger than recommended dose of Ayurvedic medicines containing aconite can produce drug reactions. Vatsanabha (Aconitum ferox Wall.) is a very well-known ingredient of Ayurvedic formulations and is prescribed as an antipyretic, analgesic, anti-rheumatic, appetizer and digestive. The recommended dose of purified Vatsanabha (A. ferox Wall.) root is 15 mg. We present a case of hypotension and bradycardia due to aconite poisoning caused by overdosing of an Ayurvedic medicine (Mahashankha Vati), which was primarily managed by Ayurvedic treatment. PMID:21170213

Spontaneous appetence for wheel-running: a model of dependency on physical activity in rat.

PubMed

Ferreira, Anthony; Lamarque, Stéphanie; Boyer, Patrice; Perez-Diaz, Fernando; Jouvent, Roland; Cohen-Salmon, Charles

2006-12-01

According to human observations of a syndrome of physical activity dependence and its consequences, we tried to examine if running activity in a free activity paradigm, where rats had a free access to activity wheel, may present a valuable animal model for physical activity dependence and most generally to behavioral dependence. The pertinence of reactivity to novelty, a well-known pharmacological dependence predictor was also tested. Given the close linkage observed in human between physical activity and drugs use and abuse, the influence of free activity in activity wheels on reactivity to amphetamine injection and reactivity to novelty were also assessed. It appeared that (1) free access to wheel may be used as a valuable model for physical activity addiction, (2) two populations differing in activity amount also differed in dependence to wheel-running. (3) Reactivity to novelty did not appeared as a predictive factor for physical activity dependence (4) activity modified novelty reactivity and (5) subjects who exhibited a high appetence to wheel-running, presented a strong reactivity to amphetamine. These results propose a model of dependency on physical activity without any pharmacological intervention, and demonstrate the existence of individual differences in the development of this addiction. In addition, these data highlight the development of a likely vulnerability to pharmacological addiction after intense and sustained physical activity, as also described in man. This model could therefore prove pertinent for studying behavioral dependencies and the underlying neurobiological mechanisms. These results may influence the way psychiatrists view behavioral dependencies and phenomena such as doping in sport or addiction to sport itself.

Transmission of calicivirus by a foodhandler in the pre-symptomatic phase of illness.

PubMed Central

Gaulin, C.; Frigon, M.; Poirier, D.; Fournier, C.

1999-01-01

After a Christmas party in a restaurant, 48 (68%) of the 82 guests contracted calicivirus gastroenteritis. The epidemiological investigation showed that salad was strongly associated with the disease episode (RR = 2.43, P = 0.0005). Similar symptoms occurred among other customers who had had a meal at the same restaurant on the same evening. A foodhandler who had only prepared salad and appetizers became sick about 30 min after the end of his shift. He had been free of symptoms while preparing food. Few outbreak investigations have shown calicivirus transmission by foodhandlers some hours before becoming symptomatic. PMID:10694160

A review of dietary fiber and health: focus on raisins.

PubMed

Bell, Stacey J

2011-09-01

Fibers vary in their physiologic effects. For example, viscous fibers may delay gastric emptying of ingested foods into the small intestine, creating a sensation of fullness; reduce blood glucose concentrations; and potentially benefit insulin sensitivity. They also improve blood cholesterol levels. Insoluble fibers are poorly absorbed and are known to improve fecal bulk and laxation and ameliorate constipation. Despite these numerous benefits, most Americans do not get enough of either kind of fiber in the diet. Some have argued that fiber-rich foods are not appetizing and therefore avoided. Raisins contain both forms of fiber and have a sweet flavor. This review provides support for consuming adequate fiber in the diet and suggests a role for raisins to help increase total dietary fiber.

Zingiber zerumbet (L.) Smith: A Review of Its Ethnomedicinal, Chemical, and Pharmacological Uses

PubMed Central

Yob, N. J.; Jofrry, S. Mohd.; Affandi, M. M. R. Meor. Mohd.; Teh, L. K.; Salleh, M. Z.; Zakaria, Z. A.

2011-01-01

Zingiber zerumbet Sm., locally known to the Malay as “Lempoyang,” is a perennial herb found in many tropical countries, including Malaysia. The rhizomes of Z. zerumbet, particularly, have been regularly used as food flavouring and appetizer in various Malays' cuisines while the rhizomes extracts have been used in Malay traditional medicine to treat various types of ailments (e.g., inflammatory- and pain-mediated diseases, worm infestation and diarrhea). Research carried out using different in vitro and in vivo assays of biological evaluation support most of these claims. The active pharmacological component of Z. zerumbet rhizomes most widely studied is zerumbone. This paper presents the botany, traditional uses, chemistry, and pharmacology of this medicinal plant. PMID:21584247

Nrxn3 upregulation in the globus pallidus of mice developing cocaine addiction.

PubMed

Kelai, Sabah; Maussion, Gilles; Noble, Florence; Boni, Claudette; Ramoz, Nicolas; Moalic, Jean-Marie; Peuchmaur, Michel; Gorwood, Philip; Simonneau, Michel

2008-05-07

Dysfunctions affecting the connections of basal ganglia lead to major neurological and psychiatric disorders. We investigated levels of mRNA for three neurexins (Nrxn) and three neuroligins (Nlgn) in the globus pallidus, subthalamic nucleus, and substantia nigra, in control conditions and after short-term exposure to cocaine. The expression of Nrxn2beta and Nlgn3 in the substantia nigra and Nlgn1 in the subthalamic nucleus depended on genetic background. The development of short-term cocaine appetence induced an increase in Nrxn3beta expression in the globus pallidus. Human NRXN3 has recently been linked to several addictions. Thus, NRXN3 adhesion molecules may play an important role in the synaptic plasticity of neurons involved in the indirect pathways of basal ganglia, in which they regulate reward-related learning.

The Design, Development, and Formative Evaluation of a USAREUR Life Coping Skills Training Program

DTIC Science & Technology

1984-06-01

paprika cream sauce, and ice cream? DM . D. Docs the above bill include the tax and service charge? II. Answer...appetizer, a pork chop in paprika cream sauce, and ice cream’.’ DM ._ Does the above bill include the tax and service charge? II. Answer...Vn *« ’»•9 ’•■/ l^ VS ’r* Tt ’»1 ’Ml 4«iaa»l nu»»! • no« ajy »« ■U "»A » ’OH 91 "»aA -U ’aaA 󈨟 "»aA ’Sl ’«N "»l ’"A El ’»A ’ZI IaA ’H ’»M -Ol

Nrxn3 upregulation in the globus pallidus of mice developing cocaine addiction

PubMed Central

Kelai, Sabah; Maussion, Gilles; Noble, Florence; Boni, Claudette; Ramoz, Nicolas; Moalic, Jean-Marie; Peuchmaur, Michel; Gorwood, Philip; Simonneau, Michel

2008-01-01

Dysfunctions affecting the connections of basal ganglia lead to major neurological and psychiatric disorders. We investigated levels of mRNA for three neurexins (Nrxn) and three neuroligins (Nlgn) in the globus pallidus, subthalamic nucleus, and substantia nigra, in control conditions and after short-term exposure to cocaine. The expression of Nrxn2β and Nlgn3 in the substantia nigra and Nlgn1in the subthalamic nucleus depended on genetic background. The development of short-term cocaine appetence induced an increase in Nrxn3β expression in the globus pallidus. Human NRXN3 has recently been linked to several addictions. Thus, NRXN3 adhesion molecules may play an important role in the synaptic plasticity of neurons involved in the indirect pathways of basal ganglia, in which they regulate reward-related learning. PMID:18418251

[Sexuality after breast cancer].

PubMed

Alder, Judith; Bitzer, Johannes

2010-03-01

Sexual complaints are an often reported complication of breast cancer treatment, however still under diagnosed and rarely subject of oncologic counseling. The etiology is multifactorial: predisposing factors, triggers and maintaining factors can be identified on a somatic, psychological and social-interactional level. Accordingly, the development of the therapeutic approach is based on the identification and, where possible, modification or compensation of those factors which explain and maintain the sexual problems. Most often, loss of appetence is being reported, however, as it may develop secondary to sexual pain (dyspareunia) which is partly due to lack of lubrication as a consequence of therapy induced hormonal changes, the entire sexual interaction as well as sexual experiences since diagnosis and treatment should be systematically assessed. For treatment, vaginal atrophy, climacteric symptoms and, most importantly, the psychological and relational adjustment process to illness induced changes have to be considered.

A 3d-3d appetizer

DOE PAGES

Pei, Du; Ye, Ke

2016-11-02

Here, we test the 3d-3d correspondence for theories that are labeled by Lens spaces. We find a full agreement between the index of the 3d N=2 “Lens space theory” T [L(p, 1)] and the partition function of complex Chern-Simons theory on L(p, 1). In particular, for p = 1, we show how the familiar S 3 partition function of Chern-Simons theory arises from the index of a free theory. For large p, we find that the index of T[L(p, 1)] becomes a constant independent of p. In addition, we study T[L(p, 1)] on the squashed three-sphere S b 3. Thismore » enables us to see clearly, at the level of partition function, to what extent G C complex Chern-Simons theory can be thought of as two copies of Chern-Simons theory with compact gauge group G.« less

Prevalence of Staphylococcal Enterotoxins in Ready-to-Eat Foods Sold in Istanbul.

PubMed

Ulusoy, Beyza H; Çakmak Sancar, Burcu; Öztürk, Muhsin

2017-10-01

The aim of this study was to investigate the prevalence of staphylococcal enterotoxins (SEs) in ready-to-eat (RTE) foods sold in Istanbul, Turkey. A total of 5,241 samples were randomly collected from various caterers, hotels, and restaurants from 2014 to 2016. The samples were classified into four groups: (i) various cooked RTE meat and vegetable meals, (ii) various RTE salads, charcuterie, and cold appetizers, (iii) various cooked RTE bakery products (pasta, pastries, pizza, pita, ravioli, etc.), and (iv) any cooked RTE sweets and desserts (pudding, custard, cream, ashura, etc.). The samples were examined for the presence of SEs by 3M Tecra Staph Enterotoxin Visual Immunoassay method, which is a manual enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay method. Among all samples, only 1 (0.019%) RTE meal (vegetable meal with meat) was found to be contaminated with SEs, a good result in terms of staphylococcal food poisoning risk and public health.

Good appearance of food gives an appetizing impression and increases cerebral blood flow of frontal pole in healthy subjects.

PubMed

Koyama, Ken Ichiro; Amitani, Haruka; Adachi, Ryo; Morimoto, Toshiki; Kido, Megumi; Taruno, Yuka; Ogata, Keizaburo; Amitani, Marie; Asakawa, Akihiro; Inui, Akio

2016-01-01

We investigated the effect of food appearance on appetite and on left-frontal pole blood flow in healthy young subjects. The iEat, a new form of foods with good appearance and greater softness was hypothesized to have the better effects to the subjects than blender-processed foods. The effect on appetite and left-frontal pole blood flow using hemoencephalography was assessed while participants were viewing the slideshows of two kinds of foods respectively. The slideshows were used to control the showing time and other variables. The pictures of iEat foods stimulated both of them more than the blender-processed ones. The measurement of cerebral blood flow could be a useful method to monitor the cognitive and emotional aspects of feeding behavior that are important for humans. Like iEat, the foods that look as good as ordinary food yet are softer can be used for people with poor appetite and eating difficulties to ordinary food.

Mango ginger (Curcuma amada Roxb.)--a promising spice for phytochemicals and biological activities.

PubMed

Policegoudra, R S; Aradhya, S M; Singh, L

2011-09-01

Mango ginger (Curcuma amada Roxb.) is a unique spice having morphological resemblance with ginger but imparts a raw mango flavour. The main use of mango ginger rhizome is in the manufacture of pickles and culinary preparations. Ayurveda and Unani medicinal systems have given much importance to mango ginger as an appetizer, alexteric, antipyretic, aphrodisiac, diuretic, emollient, expectorant and laxative and to cure biliousness, itching, skin diseases, bronchitis, asthma, hiccough and inflammation due to injuries. The biological activities of mango ginger include antioxidant activity, antibacterial activity, antifungal activity, anti-inflammatory activity, platelet aggregation inhibitory activity, cytotoxicity, antiallergic activity, hypotriglyceridemic activity, brine-shrimp lethal activity, enterokinase inhibitory activity, CNS depressant and analgesic activity. The major chemical components include starch, phenolic acids, volatile oils, curcuminoids and terpenoids like difurocumenonol, amadannulen and amadaldehyde. This article brings to light the major active components present in C. amada along with their biological activities that may be important from the pharmacological point of view.

A functional neuroimaging review of obesity, appetitive hormones and ingestive behavior.

PubMed

Burger, Kyle S; Berner, Laura A

2014-09-01

Adequate energy intake is vital for the survival of humans and is regulated by complex homeostatic and hedonic mechanisms. Supported by functional MRI (fMRI) studies that consistently demonstrate differences in brain response as a function of weight status during exposure to appetizing food stimuli, it has been posited that hedonically driven food intake contributes to weight gain and obesity maintenance. These food reward theories of obesity are reliant on the notion that the aberrant brain response to food stimuli relates directly to ingestive behavior, specifically, excess food intake. Importantly, functioning of homeostatic neuroendocrine regulators of food intake, such as leptin and ghrelin, are impacted by weight status. Thus, data from studies that evaluate the effect on weight status on brain response to food may be a result of differences in neuroendocrine functioning and/or behavior. In the present review, we examine the influence of weight and weight change, exogenous administration of appetitive hormones, and ingestive behavior on BOLD response to food stimuli. Published by Elsevier Inc.

Geriatric management in medieval Persian medicine

PubMed Central

Emami, Morteza; Sadeghpour, Omid; Zarshenas, Mohammad M.

2013-01-01

In Iran, a large group of patients are elderly people and they intend to have natural remedies as treatment. These remedies are rooted in historical of Persian and humoral medicine with a backbone of more than 1000 years. The current study was conducted to draw together medieval pharmacological information related to geriatric medicine from some of the most often manuscripts of traditional Persian medicine. Moreover, we investigated the efficacy of medicinal plants through a search of the PubMed, Scopus and Google Scholar databases. In the medieval Persian documents, digestible and a small amount of food such as chicken broth, honey, fig and plum at frequent intervals as well as body massage and morning unctioning are highly recommended. In the field of pharmacotherapy, 35 herbs related to 25 families were identified. Plants were classified as tonic, anti-aging, appetizer, memory and mood enhancer, topical analgesic and laxative as well as health improvement agents. Other than historical elucidation, this paper presents medical and pharmacological approaches that medieval Persian practitioners applied to deal with geriatric complications. PMID:24381461

Beyond pleasure and arousal: appetitive erotic stimuli modulate electrophysiological brain correlates of early attentional processing.

PubMed

Kuhr, Benjamin; Schomberg, Jessica; Gruber, Thomas; Quirin, Markus

2013-03-27

Previous studies investigating affective reactions to pictures that elicit a specific effect have mainly focused on the dimensions valence and arousal. Using an event-related picture-viewing paradigm in electroencephalography, we investigated whether erotica - that is appetitive, evolutionarily relevant stimuli - have effects on early stages of attentional processing that are distinct from those of other positive and arousing stimuli. Seventeen male students viewed arousing photos of erotic, nude women or pictures of extreme sport scenes, as well as control pictures of attractive, dressed women or daily activities. Erotic pictures differed from extreme sport pictures not only in late but also in early attentional processes, as indicated by event-related potentials appearing from 130 ms after stimulus onset (P1). The findings suggest (a) that the dimension of appetence should be considered in addition to valence and arousal when investigating psychophysiological reactions to affective-motivational stimuli and (b) that early attentional processing as mirrored by the P1 can be influenced by motivational systems.

Bridging the divide between science and journalism.

PubMed

Van Eperen, Laura; Marincola, Francesco M; Strohm, Jennifer

2010-03-10

There are countless reasons nearly every scientist should learn how to communicate effectively with the media, including increased understanding of critical research findings to attract or sustain funding and build new professional partnerships that will further propel forward research. But where do scientists begin? Bridging the Divide between Science and Journalism offers practical tips for any scientist looking to work with the media.Given the traditional and internet-based sources for medical research and healthcare-related news now available, it is imperative that scientists know how to communicate their latest findings through the appropriate channels. The credible media channels are managed by working journalists, so learning how to package vast, technical research in a form that is appetizing and "bite-sized" in order to get their attention, is an art. Reducing years of research into a headline can be extremely difficult and certainly doesn't come naturally to every scientist, so this article provides suggestions on how to work with the media to communicate your findings.

Bridging the Divide between Science and Journalism

PubMed Central

2010-01-01

There are countless reasons nearly every scientist should learn how to communicate effectively with the media, including increased understanding of critical research findings to attract or sustain funding and build new professional partnerships that will further propel forward research. But where do scientists begin? Bridging the Divide between Science and Journalism offers practical tips for any scientist looking to work with the media. Given the traditional and internet-based sources for medical research and healthcare-related news now available, it is imperative that scientists know how to communicate their latest findings through the appropriate channels. The credible media channels are managed by working journalists, so learning how to package vast, technical research in a form that is appetizing and "bite-sized" in order to get their attention, is an art. Reducing years of research into a headline can be extremely difficult and certainly doesn't come naturally to every scientist, so this article provides suggestions on how to work with the media to communicate your findings. PMID:20219123

Relation of dietary restraint scores to activation of reward-related brain regions in response to food intake, anticipated intake, and food pictures.

PubMed

Burger, Kyle S; Stice, Eric

2011-03-01

Prospective studies indicate that individuals with elevated dietary restraint scores are at increased risk for future bulimic symptom onset, suggesting that these individuals may show hyper-responsivity of reward regions to food and food cues. Thus, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine the relation of dietary restraint scores to activation of reward-related brain regions in response to receipt and anticipated receipt of chocolate milkshake and exposure to pictures of appetizing foods in 39 female adolescents (mean age=15.5 ± 0.94). Dietary restraint scores were positively correlated with activation in the right orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) and bilateral dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) in response to milkshake receipt. However, dietary restraint scores did not correlate with activation in response to anticipated milkshake receipt or exposure to food pictures. Results indicate that individuals who report high dietary restraint have a hyper-responsivity in reward-related brain regions when food intake is occurring, which may increase risk for overeating and binge eating. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Heightened eating drive and visual food stimuli attenuate central nociceptive processing

PubMed Central

Li, Xiaoyun; Fallon, Nicholas B.; Giesbrecht, Timo; Thomas, Anna; Harrold, Joanne A.; Halford, Jason C. G.; Stancak, Andrej

2014-01-01

Hunger and pain are basic drives that compete for a behavioral response when experienced together. To investigate the cortical processes underlying hunger-pain interactions, we manipulated participants' hunger and presented photographs of appetizing food or inedible objects in combination with painful laser stimuli. Fourteen healthy participants completed two EEG sessions: one after an overnight fast, the other following a large breakfast. Spatio-temporal patterns of cortical activation underlying the hunger-pain competition were explored with 128-channel EEG recordings and source dipole analysis of laser-evoked potentials (LEPs). We found that initial pain ratings were temporarily reduced when participants were hungry compared with fed. Source activity in parahippocampal gyrus was weaker when participants were hungry, and activations of operculo-insular cortex, anterior cingulate cortex, parahippocampal gyrus, and cerebellum were smaller in the context of appetitive food photographs than in that of inedible object photographs. Cortical processing of noxious stimuli in pain-related brain structures is reduced and pain temporarily attenuated when people are hungry or passively viewing food photographs, suggesting a possible interaction between the opposing motivational forces of the eating drive and pain. PMID:25475348

Contribution of DA Signaling to Appetitive Odor Perception in a Drosophila Model.

PubMed

Pu, Yuhan; Palombo, Melissa Megan Masserant; Shen, Ping

2018-04-13

Understanding cognitive processes that translate chemically diverse olfactory stimuli to specific appetitive drives remains challenging. We have shown that food-related odors arouse impulsive-like feeding of food media that are palatable and readily accessible in well-nourished Drosophila larvae. Here we provide evidence that two assemblies of four dopamine (DA) neurons, one per brain hemisphere, contribute to perceptual processing of the qualitative and quantitative attributes of food scents. These DA neurons receive neural representations of chemically diverse food-related odors, and their combined neuronal activities become increasingly important as the chemical complexity of an appetizing odor stimulus increases. Furthermore, in each assembly of DA neurons, integrated odor signals are transformed to one-dimensional DA outputs that have no intrinsic reward values. Finally, a genetic analysis has revealed a D1-type DA receptor (Dop1R1)-gated mechanism in neuropeptide Y-like neurons that assigns appetitive significance to selected DA outputs. Our findings suggest that fly larvae provide a useful platform for elucidation of molecular and circuit mechanisms underlying cognitive processing of olfactory and possibly other sensory cues.

Successful treatment with a combination of endoscopic injection and irrigation with coca cola for gastric bezoar-induced gastric outlet obstruction.

PubMed

Lin, Chen-Sheng; Tung, Chun-Fang; Peng, Yen-Chun; Chow, Wei-Keung; Chang, Chi-Sen; Hu, Wei-Hsiung

2008-01-01

We report a case of gastric bezoar-induced gastric outlet obstruction that was successfully treated with a combination of endoscopic injection and irrigation with Coca Cola. A 73-year-old diabetic woman had a history of perforated peptic ulcer and had received pyloroplasty more than 20 years previously. She had been ingesting Pho Pu Zi (Cordia dichotoma Forst. f.) as an appetizer for 1 month. She presented with epigastric pain, nausea, and vomiting. Upper gastrointestinal endoscopy, performed at a local hospital, showed 2 gastric bezoars in the stomach, and 1 of them impacted at the pylorus. She was referred to our emergency department for removal of the gastric bezoars that were suspected to be causing gastric outlet obstruction. All attempts at endoscopic removal using a polypectomy snare, biopsy forceps and Dormia basket failed. We then injected Coca Cola directly into the bezoar mass, followed by irrigation with Coca Cola. Follow-up endoscopy was performed the next day, which revealed that the gastric bezoars had dissolved spontaneously.

Heightened eating drive and visual food stimuli attenuate central nociceptive processing.

PubMed

Wright, Hazel; Li, Xiaoyun; Fallon, Nicholas B; Giesbrecht, Timo; Thomas, Anna; Harrold, Joanne A; Halford, Jason C G; Stancak, Andrej

2015-03-01

Hunger and pain are basic drives that compete for a behavioral response when experienced together. To investigate the cortical processes underlying hunger-pain interactions, we manipulated participants' hunger and presented photographs of appetizing food or inedible objects in combination with painful laser stimuli. Fourteen healthy participants completed two EEG sessions: one after an overnight fast, the other following a large breakfast. Spatio-temporal patterns of cortical activation underlying the hunger-pain competition were explored with 128-channel EEG recordings and source dipole analysis of laser-evoked potentials (LEPs). We found that initial pain ratings were temporarily reduced when participants were hungry compared with fed. Source activity in parahippocampal gyrus was weaker when participants were hungry, and activations of operculo-insular cortex, anterior cingulate cortex, parahippocampal gyrus, and cerebellum were smaller in the context of appetitive food photographs than in that of inedible object photographs. Cortical processing of noxious stimuli in pain-related brain structures is reduced and pain temporarily attenuated when people are hungry or passively viewing food photographs, suggesting a possible interaction between the opposing motivational forces of the eating drive and pain. Copyright © 2015 the American Physiological Society.

Inhibitory effect of sour pomegranate sauces on some green vegetables and kisir.

PubMed

Karabiyikli, Seniz; Kisla, Duygu

2012-04-16

In this study, the antimicrobial effects of both traditional and commercial pomegranate sour sauce samples on some green vegetables and also on "kısır" which is a popular and traditional appetizer in Turkey were investigated. The inhibitory effect of the pomegranate products on the naturally existing bacterial microflora of lettuce, spring onion, parsley and kısır were analyzed. Also, all these food samples were inoculated with Staphylococcus aureus (ATCC-25923) and Escherichia coli O157:H7 (ATCC-43895) and antimicrobial effect of the pomegranate products on the inoculated microflora was detected. All the food samples were treated with pomegranate products for different time periods and the effect of treatment time was investigated. pH and titratable acidity values of the traditional and commercial pomegranate sour sauce samples were detected. The results showed that although the pomegranate products had an antimicrobial effect on the natural bacterial microflora of the food samples, the effect on inoculated food samples was more prominent and additionally the application time was found to be a crucial parameter for both cases. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

How appetizing is the dissolved organic matter (DOM) trees lose during rainfall?

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Howard, D.; Van Stan, J. T., II; Whitetree, A.; Zhu, L.; Stubbins, A.

2017-12-01

Dissolved organic carbon (DOC) is the chemical backbone of dissolved organic matter (DOM), which is important because it drives many processes in soils and waterways. Current DOC work has paid little attention to interactions between rain and plant canopies, where rainfall is partitioned into throughfall and stemflow. Even less DOC research has investigated the effect of arboreal epiphytes on throughfall and stemflow DOC. The purpose of this study is twofold: (1) assess the degree and timing of DOC consumption by microbial communities (biolability) in throughfall and stemflow, and (2) determine whether the presence of arboreal epiphytes in the canopy affect DOC biolability. Biolability of stemflow and throughfall DOC from Juniperus virginiana (cedar) was determined by incubating samples for 14 days. Throughfall and stemflow DOC was highly biolabile with DOC concentrations decreasing by 30-60%. Throughfall DOC was more biolabile than stemflow DOC. DOC in both throughfall and stemflow from epiphyte-covered cedars was less biolabile than DOC from trees without epiphytes. The high biolability of tree-derived DOC indicates that its supply provides carbon substrates to the microbial community at the forest floor, in soils and the rhizosphere. Epiphytes appear to be important in determining the biolability of DOC and therefore the size of this carbon subsidy to the soil ecosystem.

Fiber Patterns in Young Adults Living in Different Environments (USA, Spain, and Tunisia). Anthropometric and Lifestyle Characteristics.

PubMed

García-Meseguer, María José; Delicado-Soria, Amalia; Serrano-Urrea, Ramón

2017-09-18

Benefits of dietary fiber go beyond its effect on chronic diseases associated with development. Consequently, the pattern of fiber intake has been considered an indicator for diet quality. Young adults are especially vulnerable to a food environment that drives an increase in chronic diseases linked to economic development. The aim of this work was to characterize patterns of fiber intake among university students. A cross-sectional study was conducted on a sample of 730 students enrolled at the University of Castilla-La Mancha (Spain), the University of Carthage (Tunisia), and Florida International University (USA). Mean age was 21.2. Food consumption was self-reported in two 24-h recalls. Mean dietary fiber intake was 17.8 g, not reaching the adequate intake. Contrary to expectations, American participants were the highest consumers ( p < 0.001), and also exhibited the highest BMI. Cereals, legumes, vegetables and fruit were the main food sources of fiber. Fiber from appetizers, prepared and precooked meals, sauces, spices and condiments accounted for 16.7% in American participants, 7.4% in Spanish participants and 2.6% in Tunisian participants. Total fiber intake increased with energy intake but did not depend on smoking habits and physical activity in any country. It is essential to improve consumers' interpretation of guidelines on fiber intake.

Dietary restraint and impulsivity modulate neural responses to food in adolescents with obesity and healthy adolescents.

PubMed

Hofmann, Johannes; Ardelt-Gattinger, Elisabeth; Paulmichl, Katharina; Weghuber, Daniel; Blechert, Jens

2015-11-01

Despite alarming prevalence rates, surprisingly little is known about neural mechanisms underlying eating behavior in juveniles with obesity. To simulate reactivity to modern food environments, event-related potentials (ERP) to appetizing food images (relative to control images) were recorded in adolescents with obesity and healthy adolescents. Thirty-four adolescents with obesity (patients) and 24 matched healthy control adolescents watched and rated standardized food and object images during ERP recording. Personality (impulsivity) and eating styles (trait craving and dietary restraint) were assessed as potential moderators. Food relative to object images triggered larger early (P100) and late (P300) ERPs. More impulsive individuals had considerably larger food-specific P100 amplitudes in both groups. Controls with higher restraint scores showed reduced food-specific P300 amplitudes and subjective palatability ratings whereas patients with higher restraint scores showed increased P300 and palatability ratings. This first ERP study in adolescents with obesity and controls revealed impulsivity as a general risk factor in the current obesogenic environment by increasing food-cue salience. Dietary restraint showed paradoxical effects in patients, making them more vulnerable to visual food-cues. Salutogenic therapeutic approaches that deemphasize strict dietary restraint and foster healthy food choice might reduce such paradoxical effects. © 2015 The Obesity Society.

Long-haul truck drivers want healthful meal options at truck-stop restaurants.

PubMed

Whitfield Jacobson, Pamela J; Prawitz, Aimee D; Lukaszuk, Judith M

2007-12-01

Long-haul truckers are confined, by parking regulations and other constraints, to dining at truck-stop restaurants. Objectives were to (a) compare truckers' anthropometrics with recommended guidelines; and (b) assess eating/exercise habits, importance of healthful food choices, and attitudes about restaurants' provision of healthful options. Hypotheses were: (a) overweight/obese drivers will place less importance on healthful food choices than will drivers of optimal weight; (b) importance of healthful food choices and attitudes about their provision will be positively correlated. Questionnaires included Food Choices Index, Nutrition Attitude Survey, and demographic information; bioelectrical impedance assessed weight, body fat, and body mass index. Subjects (n=92) were truckers at a Midwestern truck-stop restaurant; 79 were overweight, 52 were obese. Mean rating of importance of healthful choices was above average. There was no difference in importance of healthful food choices for overweight/obese and optimal weight drivers, t(89)=-1.312; P=0.19. Drivers placing more importance on healthful food choices had more positive attitudes about restaurants' provision of such options, r(90)=0.74, P<0.001. Overall, drivers indicated they would choose healthful foods if available and appetizing. Registered dietitian-directed wellness programs that include education, support, and cooperation of truck-stop restaurants are critical to reduce obesity and risk of disease in this population.

Phenolic Compounds as Nutraceuticals or Functional Food Ingredients.

PubMed

Caleja, Cristina; Ribeiro, Andreia; Barreiro, Maria Filomena; Ferreira, Isabel C F R

2017-01-01

Nowadays, the functional foods represent one the most promising, interesting and innovative areas in the food industry. Various components are being added to foods in order to render them functional. One example of these components are plant naturally occurring phenolic compounds, which are associated with a high antioxidant capacity and thus with benefits in relation to human health. However, despite the huge number of scientific studies and patents on this topic and their natural presence in foods, namely in the ones from plant origin, there are still few marketable products enriched with these compounds. The commercialization of this type of functional products needs to go through various regulations, proving that they are safe and present the ascribed health benefits, conquering the target audience. In this review the growing interest of industry and consumers' appetence for functional foods and nutraceuticals is highlighted, focusing especially on phenolic compounds. Although several published works show the multitude of bioactive properties of these compounds, ensuring their use as bioactive ingredients in food, they present inherent stability issues needing to be solved. However, considerable research is presently ongoing to overcome this problem, making viable the development of new products to be launched in the market. Copyright© Bentham Science Publishers; For any queries, please email at epub@benthamscience.org.

Sex-Specific Sociodemographic Correlates of Dietary Patterns in a Large Sample of French Elderly Individuals.

PubMed

Andreeva, Valentina A; Allès, Benjamin; Feron, Gilles; Gonzalez, Rebeca; Sulmont-Rossé, Claire; Galan, Pilar; Hercberg, Serge; Méjean, Caroline

2016-08-08

This cross-sectional analysis provides up-to-date information about dietary patterns (DP) and their sociodemographic correlates in European elderly individuals. We studied 6686 enrollees aged 65+ (55% women) in the ongoing French population-based NutriNet-Santé e-cohort. Diet was assessed via three 24 h records. The sex-specific correlates of factor analysis derived DP were identified with multivariable linear regression. Using 22 pre-defined food groups, three DP were extracted. The "healthy" DP (fruit, vegetables, grains, nuts, fish) was positively associated with education, living alone, and being a former smoker (women), and negatively associated with being overweight, current smoker (men), age 75+ years, having hypertension, and obesity (women). The "western" DP (meat, appetizers, cheese, alcohol) was positively associated with BMI (men) and being a former/current smoker; it was negatively associated with age 75+ years (women) and living alone. The "traditional" DP (bread, potatoes, milk, vegetables, butter, stock) was positively associated with age and negatively associated with being a former/current smoker, education (men), and residing in an urban/semi-urban area. The findings support the diversity of DP among the elderly, highlighting sex-specific differences. The "healthy" DP explained the largest amount of variance in intake. Future studies could replicate the models in longitudinal and international contexts.

Using High Spatial Resolution to Improve BOLD fMRI Detection at 3T

PubMed Central

Claise, Béatrice; Jean, Betty

2015-01-01

For different functional magnetic resonance imaging experiments using blood oxygenation level-dependent (BOLD) contrast, the acquisition of T 2*-weighted scans at a high spatial resolution may be advantageous in terms of time-course signal-to-noise ratio and of BOLD sensitivity when the regions are prone to susceptibility artifacts. In this study, we explore this solution by examining how spatial resolution influences activations elicited when appetizing food pictures are viewed. Twenty subjects were imaged at 3 T with two different voxel volumes, 3.4 μl and 27 μl. Despite the diminution of brain coverage, we found that high-resolution acquisition led to a better detection of activations. Though known to suffer to different degrees from susceptibility artifacts, the activations detected by high spatial resolution were notably consistent with those reported in published activation likelihood estimation meta-analyses, corresponding to taste-responsive regions. Furthermore, these regions were found activated bilaterally, in contrast with previous findings. Both the reduction of partial volume effect, which improves BOLD contrast, and the mitigation of susceptibility artifact, which boosts the signal to noise ratio in certain regions, explained the better detection noted with high resolution. The present study provides further evidences that high spatial resolution is a valuable solution for human BOLD fMRI, especially for studying food-related stimuli. PMID:26550990

Food-pics: an image database for experimental research on eating and appetite.

PubMed

Blechert, Jens; Meule, Adrian; Busch, Niko A; Ohla, Kathrin

2014-01-01

Our current environment is characterized by the omnipresence of food cues. The sight and smell of real foods, but also graphically depictions of appetizing foods, can guide our eating behavior, for example, by eliciting food craving and influencing food choice. The relevance of visual food cues on human information processing has been demonstrated by a growing body of studies employing food images across the disciplines of psychology, medicine, and neuroscience. However, currently used food image sets vary considerably across laboratories and image characteristics (contrast, brightness, etc.) and food composition (calories, macronutrients, etc.) are often unspecified. These factors might have contributed to some of the inconsistencies of this research. To remedy this, we developed food-pics, a picture database comprising 568 food images and 315 non-food images along with detailed meta-data. A total of N = 1988 individuals with large variance in age and weight from German speaking countries and North America provided normative ratings of valence, arousal, palatability, desire to eat, recognizability and visual complexity. Furthermore, data on macronutrients (g), energy density (kcal), and physical image characteristics (color composition, contrast, brightness, size, complexity) are provided. The food-pics image database is freely available under the creative commons license with the hope that the set will facilitate standardization and comparability across studies and advance experimental research on the determinants of eating behavior.

Food-pics: an image database for experimental research on eating and appetite

PubMed Central

Blechert, Jens; Meule, Adrian; Busch, Niko A.; Ohla, Kathrin

2014-01-01

Our current environment is characterized by the omnipresence of food cues. The sight and smell of real foods, but also graphically depictions of appetizing foods, can guide our eating behavior, for example, by eliciting food craving and influencing food choice. The relevance of visual food cues on human information processing has been demonstrated by a growing body of studies employing food images across the disciplines of psychology, medicine, and neuroscience. However, currently used food image sets vary considerably across laboratories and image characteristics (contrast, brightness, etc.) and food composition (calories, macronutrients, etc.) are often unspecified. These factors might have contributed to some of the inconsistencies of this research. To remedy this, we developed food-pics, a picture database comprising 568 food images and 315 non-food images along with detailed meta-data. A total of N = 1988 individuals with large variance in age and weight from German speaking countries and North America provided normative ratings of valence, arousal, palatability, desire to eat, recognizability and visual complexity. Furthermore, data on macronutrients (g), energy density (kcal), and physical image characteristics (color composition, contrast, brightness, size, complexity) are provided. The food-pics image database is freely available under the creative commons license with the hope that the set will facilitate standardization and comparability across studies and advance experimental research on the determinants of eating behavior. PMID:25009514

The McDonaldization of appraisal? Doctors' views of the early impacts of medical revalidation in the United Kingdom.

PubMed

Archer, Julian; Nunn, Suzanne; Regan de Bere, Sam

2017-09-01

Medical regulation is rapidly changing with claims that systems such as revalidation/relicensing will reassure the public. Yet the impact of such initiatives is unknown. Using the principles of efficiency, calculability, predictability and control through technology, identified by Ritzer, and exampled by the McDonalds business model, we analyzed interviews with doctors between May 2012-Dec 2013 which focused on doctor experiences of appraisal and revalidation in SW England. The research found significant changes in appraisals since the launch of revalidation in December 2012. Appraisal has been standardized with a list of supporting information that must be collected by doctors. The success of implementation is measured in the numbers of appraisals completed but less is known about the quality of the appraisal itself. Such efficiencies have been supported by IT systems that themselves might be at risk of driving the process. There are potential advantages to McDonaldization including appraisals available to all, not just for doctors working in the NHS, and a potentially more appetizing recipe for their completion. As yet a state of McAppraisal has not been reached; with a complete transfer of trust in the doctor to trust in the appraisal process within revalidation. However policymakers will need to continue to ensure that regulatory initiatives, such as revalidation, are not just a process for their own sake. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Influence of compression parameters on mechanical behavior of mozzarella cheese.

PubMed

Fogaça, Davi Novaes Ladeia; da Silva, William Soares; Rodrigues, Luciano Brito

2017-10-01

Studies on the interaction between direction and degree of compression in the Texture Profile Analysis (TPA) of cheeses are limited. For this reason the present study aimed to evaluate the mechanical properties of Mozzarella cheese by TPA at different compression degrees (65, 75, and 85%) and directions (axes X, Y, and Z). Data obtained were compared in order to identify possible interaction between both factors. Compression direction did not affect any mechanical variable, or rather, the cheese had an isotropic behavior for TPA. Compression degree had a significant influence (p < 0.05) on TPA responses, excepting for chewiness TPA (N), which remained constant. Data from texture profile were adjusted to models to explain the mechanical behavior according to the compression degree used in the test. The isotropic behavior observed may be result of differences in production method of Mozzarella cheese especially on stretching of cheese mass. Texture Profile Analysis (TPA) is a technique largely used to assess the mechanical properties of food, particularly cheese. The precise choice of the instrumental test configuration is essential for achieving results that represent the material analyzed. The method of manufacturing is another factor that may directly influence the mechanical properties of food. This can be seen, for instance, in stretched curd cheese, such as Mozzarella. Knowledge on such mechanical properties is highly relevant for food industries due to the mechanical resistance in piling, pressing, manufacture of packages, and food transport, or to melting features presented by the food at high temperatures in preparation of several foods, such as pizzas, snacks, sandwiches, and appetizers. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Emotional eating and Pavlovian learning: does negative mood facilitate appetitive conditioning?

PubMed

Bongers, Peggy; van den Akker, Karolien; Havermans, Remco; Jansen, Anita

2015-06-01

Emotional eating has been suggested to be a learned behaviour; more specifically, classical conditioning processes might be involved in its development. In the present study we investigated whether a negative mood facilitates appetitive conditioning and whether trait impulsivity influences this process. After undergoing either a negative or neutral mood induction, participants were subjected to a differential classical conditioning procedure, using neutral stimuli and appetizing food. Two initially neutral distinctive vases with flowers were (CS+) or were not (CS-) paired with chocolate mousse intake. We measured participants' expectancy and desire to eat (4 CS+ and 4 CS- trials), salivation response, and actual food intake. The BIS-11 was administered to assess trait impulsivity. In both mood conditions, participants showed a classically conditioned appetite. Unexpectedly, there was no evidence of facilitated appetitive learning in a negative mood with regard to expectancy, desire, salivation, or intake. However, immediately before the taste test, participants in the negative mood condition reported a stronger desire to eat in the CS+ compared to the CS- condition, while no such effect occurred in the neutral group. An effect of impulsivity was found with regard to food intake in the neutral mood condition: high-impulsive participants consumed less food when presented with the CS+ compared to the CS-, and also less than low-impulsive participants. An alternative pathway to appetitive conditioning with regard to emotions is that it is not the neutral stimuli, but the emotions themselves that become conditioned stimuli and elicit appetitive responses. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

A systematic review of the evidence of reduced allergenicity and clinical benefit of food hydrolysates in dogs with cutaneous adverse food reactions.

PubMed

Olivry, Thierry; Bizikova, Petra

2010-02-01

Several hydrolysate-based diets have been commercialized for helping diagnose or treat dogs with cutaneous adverse food reactions (CAFR). This systematic review was performed to examine the evidence in favour of reduced immunological and clinical allergenicity of hydrolysates in dogs with CAFR. Citation databases, meeting abstracts and article bibliographies were scanned for relevant citations, and companies were contacted to provide unpublished reports. Eleven studies relevant to this study were identified. Some evidence of reduced serum IgE binding to a soy hydrolysate (1 study) and decreased intradermal test reactivity to hydrolysed proteins (three studies) was found. In four reports, the feeding of dogs suspected of having CAFR with hydrolysate-based diets reduced or eliminated clinical signs in a variable proportion of subjects. The percentage of dogs with CAFR that still reacted to these hydrolysate-based diets could not be assessed, however. Importantly, up to 50% of dogs with CAFR enrolled in three controlled studies exhibited increases in clinical signs after ingesting partial hydrolysates derived from foods to which they were hypersensitive. In conclusion, the limited number of studies undertaken point to reduced - but not eliminated - immunological and clinical allergenicity of hydrolysate-based commercial diets. A variable proportion of dogs with CAFR will exhibit a worsening of clinical signs when fed partial hydrolysates. Clinicians must weigh the clinical benefit of these diets versus their high cost and low risk of reduced appetence or gastrointestinal sign development. At this time, hydrolysate-containing diets are probably best used in dogs suspected not to be hypersensitive to their individual components.

Scenario of Growing Crops on Silicates in Lunar Gargens

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kozyrovska, N.; Kovalchuk, M.; Negutska, V.; Lar, O.; Korniichuk, O.; Alpatov, A.; Rogutskiy, I.; Kordyum, V.; Foing, B.

Self-perpetuating gardens will be a practical necessity for humans, living in permanently manned lunar bases. A lunar garden has to supplement less appetizing packaged food brought from the Earth, and the ornamental plants have to serve as valuable means for emotional relaxation of crews in a hostile lunar environment. The plants are less prone to the inevitable pests and diseases when they are in optimum condition, however, in lunar greenhouses there is a threat for plants to be hosts for pests and predators. Although the lunar rocks are microorganism free, there will be a problem with the acquired infection (pathogens brought from the Earth) in the substrate used for the plant growing. On the Moon pests can be removed by total fumigation, including seed fumigation. However, such a treatment is not required when probiotics (biocontrol bacteria) for seed inoculation are used. A consortium of bacteria, controlling plant diseases, provides the production of an acceptable harvest under growth limiting factors and a threatening infection. To model lunar conditions we have used terrestrial alumino-silicate mineral anorthosite (Malyn, Ukraine) which served us as a lunar mineral analog for a substrate composition. With the idea to provide a plant with some essential growth elements siliceous bacterium Paenibacillus sp. has been isolated from alumino-silicate mineral, and a mineral leaching has been simulated in laboratory condition. The combination of mineral anorthosite and siliceous bacteria, on one hand, and a consortium of beneficial bacteria for biocontrol of plant diseases, on the other hand, are currently used in model experiments to examine the wheat and potato growth and production in cultivating chambers under controlled conditions.

Salt and its Role in Health and Disease Prevention from the Perspectives of Iranian Medicine and Modern Medicine.

PubMed

Mokhtari, Masoud; Vahid, Hamide

2016-05-01

Salt in Iranian medical sources is mentioned as Malh and has a special place in people's nutrition. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of correct use of salt on health and disease prevention in the context of Iranian medicine and its comparison with modern medicine. This article reviews Iranian medicine references on the usage of salt and its benefits. Additionally, modern medicine references were searched to identify the dos and don'ts of salt consumption. Then the results from both approaches were compared and analyzed. The main application salt in Iranian medical resources includes usage in latif supplier, solvent, dryer, laxative of phlegm and melancholy, slimy moisture body repellent, opening obstruction of liver and spleen, aid in digestion, beneficial for seeds and corruption of foods, appetizing, cold foods reformer and improving the flavor of foods. On the other hand, the major benefits of salt according to modern medicine resources are; aiding the balance of electrolytes and fluids, carry nutrients into cells, regulation of acid-base balance, support transfer of nerve impulses, regulate blood pressure, and secretion of gastric acid. According to the Iranian medicine, the amount and type of salt to maintain health and prevent diseases is determined based on factors such as temperament, age, health and disease, season, and location. While a unique approach is not prescribed for every individual, in modern medicine resources, a fixed set of guidelines is recommended for all healthy individuals. Consequently, the modern medicine pays less attention to physiological, structural, and genetic issues. Considering the importance of salt and its undeniable impact on human health, it is apparent that additional research is required to determine factors affecting the actual amount of salt per person.

Sensory-specific appetite is affected by actively smelled food odors and remains stable over time in normal-weight women.

PubMed

Ramaekers, Mariëlle G; Boesveldt, Sanne; Gort, Gerrit; Lakemond, Catriona M M; van Boekel, Martinus A J S; Luning, Pieternel A

2014-08-01

Understanding overconsumption starts with knowledge of how separate factors influence our eating behavior. Food cues such as food odors are known for their effect on general appetite and sensory-specific appetite (SSA). Active sniffing rather than passive exposure may induce satiation over time. The objective of this study was to investigate how actively sniffing banana odors affects general appetite, SSA, and subsequent food intake. In a crossover study, 61 women actively smelled cups containing natural banana, artificial banana odor, or water (no odor) for 10 min. Treatment order was randomly assigned as much as possible. General appetite and SSA were monitored by using 100-mm visual analog scales during the 10 min of active sniffing, followed by ad libitum intake of banana milkshake. Results showed that SSA was consistently high (+12 mm) during actively sniffing natural or artificial banana odors, with no decrease in SSA over time. Sniffing both banana odors increased the appetite for banana (+11 mm) and other sweet products (+4 mm), whereas the appetite for savory products decreased by 7 mm (all P < 0.01) compared with no odor. Actively sniffing banana odor did not significantly influence food intake (P = 0.68) or general appetite scores (P = 0.06). In conclusion, SSA scores during active sniffing were identical to the SSA found in a similar study that used passive smelling, suggesting that SSA is independent of the manner of sniffing and exposure time. Moreover, sweet/savory categorization may suggest that food odors communicate information about the nutrient composition of their associated foods. These data clearly show the appetizing effects of food odors. © 2014 American Society for Nutrition.

A comprehensive analysis of sodium levels in the Canadian packaged food supply

PubMed Central

Arcand, JoAnne; Au, Jennifer T.C.; Schermel, Alyssa; L’Abbe, Mary R.

2016-01-01

Background Population-wide sodium reduction strategies aim to reduce the cardiovascular burden of excess dietary sodium. Lowering sodium in packaged foods, which contribute the most sodium to the diet, is an important intervention to lower population intakes. Purpose To determine sodium levels in Canadian packaged foods and evaluate the proportion of foods meeting sodium benchmark targets set by Health Canada. Methods A cross-sectional analysis of 7234 packaged foods available in Canada in 2010–11. Sodium values were obtained from the Nutrition Facts table. Results Overall, 51.4% of foods met one of the sodium benchmark levels: 11.5% met Phase 1, 11.1% met Phase 2, and 28.7% met 2016 goal (Phase 3) benchmarks. Food groups with the greatest proportion meeting goal benchmarks were dairy (52.0%) and breakfast cereals (42.2%). Overall 48.6% of foods did not meet any benchmark level and 25% of all products exceeded maximum levels. Meats (61.2%) and canned vegetables/legumes and legumes (29.6%) had the most products exceeding maximum levels. There was large variability in the range of sodium within and between food categories. Food categories highest in sodium (mg/serving) were dry, condensed and ready-to-serve soups (834 ± 256, 754 ± 163, and 636 ± 173, respectively), oriental noodles (783 ± 433), broth (642 ± 239), and frozen appetizers/sides (642 ± 292). Conclusion These data provide a critical baseline assessment for monitoring sodium levels in Canadian foods. While some segments of the market are making progress towards sodium reduction, all sectors need encouragement to continue to reduce the amount of sodium added during food processing. PMID:24842740

Genetic diversity and population structure in Physalis peruviana and related taxa based on InDels and SNPs derived from COSII and IRG markers

PubMed Central

Garzón-Martínez, Gina A.; Osorio-Guarín, Jaime A.; Delgadillo-Durán, Paola; Mayorga, Franklin; Enciso-Rodríguez, Felix E.; Landsman, David

2015-01-01

The genus Physalis is common in the Americas and includes several economically important species, among them Physalis peruviana that produces appetizing edible fruits. We studied the genetic diversity and population structure of P. peruviana and characterized 47 accessions of this species along with 13 accessions of related taxa consisting of 222 individuals from the Colombian Corporation of Agricultural Research (CORPOICA) germplasm collection, using Conserved Orthologous Sequences (COSII) and Immunity Related Genes (IRGs). In addition, 642 Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNPs) markers were identified and used for the genetic diversity analysis. A total of 121 alleles were detected in 24 InDels loci ranging from 2 to 9 alleles per locus, with an average of 5.04 alleles per locus. The average number of alleles in the SNP markers was two. The observed heterozygosity for P. peruviana with InDel and SNP markers was higher (0.48 and 0.59) than the expected heterozygosity (0.30 and 0.41). Interestingly, the observed heterozygosity in related taxa (0.4 and 0.12) was lower than the expected heterozygosity (0.59 and 0.25). The coefficient of population differentiation FST was 0.143 (InDels) and 0.038 (SNPs), showing a relatively low level of genetic differentiation among P. peruviana and related taxa. Higher levels of genetic variation were instead observed within populations based on the AMOVA analysis. Population structure analysis supported the presence of two main groups and PCA analysis based on SNP markers revealed two distinct clusters in the P. peruviana accessions corresponding to their state of cultivation. In this study, we identified molecular markers useful to detect genetic variation in Physalis germplasm for assisting conservation and crossbreeding strategies. PMID:26550601

What's on the menu? A review of the energy and nutritional content of US chain restaurant menus.

PubMed

Wu, Helen W; Sturm, Roland

2013-01-01

The present study aimed to (i) describe the availability of nutrition information in major chain restaurants, (ii) document the energy and nutrient levels of menu items, (iii) evaluate relationships with restaurant characteristics, menu labelling and trans fat laws, and nutrition information accessibility, and (iv) compare energy and nutrient levels against industry-sponsored and government-issued nutrition criteria. Descriptive statistics and multivariate regression analysis of the energy, total fat, saturated fat, trans fat, sodium, carbohydrate and protein levels of 29 531 regular and 1392 children's menu items [corrected]. Energy and nutrition information provided on restaurant websites or upon request, and secondary databases on restaurant characteristics. The top 400 US chain restaurants by sales, based on the 2009 list of the Restaurants & Institutions magazine. Complete nutrition information was reported for 245 (61 %) restaurants. Appetizers had more energy, fat and sodium than all other item types. Children's menu specialty beverages had more fat, saturated fat and carbohydrates than comparable regular menu beverages. The majority of main entrées fell below one-third of the US Department of Agriculture's estimated daily energy needs, but as few as 3 % were also within limits for sodium, fat and saturated fat. Main entrées had significantly more energy, fat and saturated fat in family-style restaurants than in fast-food restaurants. Restaurants that made nutrition information easily accessible on websites had significantly lower energy, fat and sodium contents across menu offerings than those providing information only upon request. The paper provides a comprehensive view of chain restaurant menu nutrition prior to nationwide labelling laws. It offers baseline data to evaluate how restaurants respond after laws are implemented.

Genetic diversity and population structure in Physalis peruviana and related taxa based on InDels and SNPs derived from COSII and IRG markers.

PubMed

Garzón-Martínez, Gina A; Osorio-Guarín, Jaime A; Delgadillo-Durán, Paola; Mayorga, Franklin; Enciso-Rodríguez, Felix E; Landsman, David; Mariño-Ramírez, Leonardo; Barrero, Luz Stella

2015-12-01

The genus Physalis is common in the Americas and includes several economically important species, among them Physalis peruviana that produces appetizing edible fruits. We studied the genetic diversity and population structure of P. peruviana and characterized 47 accessions of this species along with 13 accessions of related taxa consisting of 222 individuals from the Colombian Corporation of Agricultural Research (CORPOICA) germplasm collection, using Conserved Orthologous Sequences (COSII) and Immunity Related Genes (IRGs). In addition, 642 Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNPs) markers were identified and used for the genetic diversity analysis. A total of 121 alleles were detected in 24 InDels loci ranging from 2 to 9 alleles per locus, with an average of 5.04 alleles per locus. The average number of alleles in the SNP markers was two. The observed heterozygosity for P. peruviana with InDel and SNP markers was higher (0.48 and 0.59) than the expected heterozygosity (0.30 and 0.41). Interestingly, the observed heterozygosity in related taxa (0.4 and 0.12) was lower than the expected heterozygosity (0.59 and 0.25). The coefficient of population differentiation F ST was 0.143 (InDels) and 0.038 (SNPs), showing a relatively low level of genetic differentiation among P. peruviana and related taxa. Higher levels of genetic variation were instead observed within populations based on the AMOVA analysis. Population structure analysis supported the presence of two main groups and PCA analysis based on SNP markers revealed two distinct clusters in the P. peruviana accessions corresponding to their state of cultivation. In this study, we identified molecular markers useful to detect genetic variation in Physalis germplasm for assisting conservation and crossbreeding strategies.

Comparison of the Effects of Curcumin Mucoadhesive Paste and Local Corticosteroid on the Treatment of Erosive Oral Lichen Planus Lesions.

PubMed

Nosratzehi, Tahereh; Arbabi-Kalati, Fateme; Hamishehkar, Hamed; Bagheri, Sudabeh

2018-02-01

Lichen planus is a prevalent chronic mucocutaneous condition, whose exact pathogenesis has not been elucidated yet and its standard treatment at present involves the use of local corticosteroids. Curcumin is a colored material extracted from Curcuma longa plant species and is used as an appetizer and for medical purposes. It has anti-inflammatory, antioxidative and anti-cancerous properties. In the present study, the effect of mucoadhesive pastes containing curcumin and local corticosteroids was evaluated for the treatment of erosive lichen planus lesions. In this case‒control study, 40 patients with oral lichen planus were evaluated. Twenty patients, as the cases, were given mucoadhesive pates containing curcumin and 20 patients, as the controls, were given local corticosteroids. The lesion sizes were recorded in the first session and during the follow-up sessions. Pain severities were measured and recorded using the visual analogue scale (VAS) on the first session and during the follow-up sessions. Data were analyzed with SPSS 19, using Student's t-test and Mann-Whitney test. Data are significant P < 0.05. The lesion sizes, pain severities and changes in classification of the lesions exhibited significant differences at different follow-up sessions (weeks 1, 2, 4, 8 and 12) in the two groups (P < 0.05). However, there were no significant differences between the group treated with curcumin and the group treated with local corticosteroids (P > 0.05). Curcumin was effective in the treatment of oral lichen planus lesions and resulted in decreases in lesion sizes, pain and burning sensation severities and changes in classification of the lesions without any complications. Copyright © 2018 National Medical Association. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Retrieval and classification of food images.

PubMed

Farinella, Giovanni Maria; Allegra, Dario; Moltisanti, Marco; Stanco, Filippo; Battiato, Sebastiano

2016-10-01

Automatic food understanding from images is an interesting challenge with applications in different domains. In particular, food intake monitoring is becoming more and more important because of the key role that it plays in health and market economies. In this paper, we address the study of food image processing from the perspective of Computer Vision. As first contribution we present a survey of the studies in the context of food image processing from the early attempts to the current state-of-the-art methods. Since retrieval and classification engines able to work on food images are required to build automatic systems for diet monitoring (e.g., to be embedded in wearable cameras), we focus our attention on the aspect of the representation of the food images because it plays a fundamental role in the understanding engines. The food retrieval and classification is a challenging task since the food presents high variableness and an intrinsic deformability. To properly study the peculiarities of different image representations we propose the UNICT-FD1200 dataset. It was composed of 4754 food images of 1200 distinct dishes acquired during real meals. Each food plate is acquired multiple times and the overall dataset presents both geometric and photometric variabilities. The images of the dataset have been manually labeled considering 8 categories: Appetizer, Main Course, Second Course, Single Course, Side Dish, Dessert, Breakfast, Fruit. We have performed tests employing different representations of the state-of-the-art to assess the related performances on the UNICT-FD1200 dataset. Finally, we propose a new representation based on the perceptual concept of Anti-Textons which is able to encode spatial information between Textons outperforming other representations in the context of food retrieval and Classification. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Impact of the front-of-pack 5-colour nutrition label (5-CNL) on the nutritional quality of purchases: an experimental study.

PubMed

Julia, Chantal; Blanchet, Olivier; Méjean, Caroline; Péneau, Sandrine; Ducrot, Pauline; Allès, Benjamin; Fezeu, Léopold K; Touvier, Mathilde; Kesse-Guyot, Emmanuelle; Singler, Eric; Hercberg, Serge

2016-09-20

Front-of-pack (FOP) nutrition labelling has received growing attention from public health authorities, as a tool to promote healthier diets in the population. Recently, the French Health law introduced the principle of implementing a FOP nutrition labelling system. A scientific proposal has put forward the 5-Colour Nutrition Label (5-CNL), a five-category colour-coded summary system supported by research suggesting that it is well perceived and understood in the population. Our objective was to investigate the impact of the 5-CNL on the nutritional quality of purchases in experimental supermarkets. Participants (n = 901) were recruited using quota sampling between September and December 2015 and evenly distributed in three experimental conditions: 1) control situation; 2) Application of the 5-CNL on all food products in three specific sections: breakfast cereals, sweet biscuits and appetizers; 3) introduction of the 5-CNL accompanied by consumer information on use and understanding of the label. Main outcome was the nutritional quality of the shopping cart in the three sections combined, measured using the United Kingdom Food Standards Agency nutrient profiling system (FSA score). Significantly higher mean nutritional quality of the purchased items per section were observed for the sweet biscuits category in the intervention combining the label + communication (overall FSA score 21.01 vs. 20.23, P = 0.02). No significant effects were observed for the general mean over the three sections combined or other food categories. The results observed on purchase may be related to the high level of recall, self-reported and objective understanding of the label that were observed in the intervention groups as they are pre-requisites for use of a label in purchasing situations. These results suggest that the 5-CNL FOP nutrition label may have a limited impact on purchases, leading to healthier food choices in some food categories such as sweet biscuits. The trial was registered on Clinicaltrials.gov under the number NCT02546505 .

Isolation and characterization of cyclo-(tryptophanyl-prolyl) and chloramphenicol from Streptomyces sp. SUK 25 with antimethicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus activity

PubMed Central

Alshaibani, Muhanna M; Jalil, Juriyati; Sidik, Nik M; Edrada-Ebel, Ruangelie; Zin, Noraziah M

2016-01-01

Background Zingiber spectabile, commonly known as Beehive Ginger, is used as an ethnobotanical plant in many countries as an appetizer or to treat stomachache, toothache, muscle sprain, and as a cure for swelling, sores and cuts. This is the first report of isolation of Streptomyces strain from the root of this plant. Strain Universiti Kebangsaan 25 (SUK 25) has a very high activity to produce secondary metabolites against methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), which is associated with high morbidity and mortality rates due to acquired multidrug resistance genes and causes medication failure in some clinical cases worldwide. Phylogenetic analysis based on the 16S ribosomal RNA gene sequence exhibited that the most closely related strain was Streptomyces omiyaensis NBRC 13449T (99.0% similarity). Aim This study was conducted to carry out the extraction, identification, and biological evaluation of active metabolites isolated from SUK 25 against three MRSA strains, namely, MRSA ATCC 43300, MRSA ATCC 33591, and MRSA ATCC 49476. Materials and methods The production of secondary metabolites by this strain was optimized through Thronton’s media. Isolation, purification, and identification of the bioactive compounds were carried out using reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography, high-resolution mass spectrometry, Fourier transform infrared, and one-dimensional and two-dimensional nuclear magnetic resonance. Results During screening procedure, SUK 25 exhibited good antimicrobial potential against several strains of MRSA. The best biological activity was shown from fraction number VII and its subfractions F2 and F3 with minimum inhibitory concentration values at 16 µg/mL and 8 µg/mL, respectively. These two subfractions were identified as diketopiperazine cyclo-(tryptophanyl-prolyl) and chloramphenicol. Conclusion On the basis of obtained results, SUK 25 isolated from Z. spectabile can be regarded as a new valuable source to produce secondary metabolites against bacteria, especially MRSA. PMID:27330275

Effectiveness of Front-Of-Pack Nutrition Labels in French Adults: Results from the NutriNet-Santé Cohort Study

PubMed Central

Ducrot, Pauline; Méjean, Caroline; Julia, Chantal; Kesse-Guyot, Emmanuelle; Touvier, Mathilde; Fezeu, Léopold; Hercberg, Serge; Péneau, Sandrine

2015-01-01

Background To date, no consensus has emerged on the most appropriate front-of-pack (FOP) nutrition label to help consumers in making informed choices. We aimed to compare the effectiveness of the label formats currently in use: nutrient-specific, graded and simple summary systems, in a large sample of adults. Methods The FOP label effectiveness was assessed by measuring the label acceptability and understanding among 13,578 participants of the NutriNet-Santé cohort study, representative of the French adult population. Participants were exposed to five conditions, including four FOP labels: Guideline Daily Amounts (GDA), Multiple Traffic Lights (MTL), 5-Color Nutrition Label (5-CNL), Green Tick (Tick), and a “no label” condition. Acceptability was evaluated by several indicators: attractiveness, liking and perceived cognitive workload. Objective understanding was assessed by the percentage of correct answers when ranking three products according to their nutritional quality. Five different product categories were tested: prepared fish dishes, pizzas, dairy products, breakfast cereals, and appetizers. Differences among the label effectiveness were compared with chi-square tests. Results The 5-CNL was viewed as the easiest label to identify and as the one requiring the lowest amount of effort and time to understand. GDA was considered as the least easy to identify and to understand, despite being the most attractive and liked label. All FOP labels were found to be effective in ranking products according to their nutritional quality compared with the “no label” situation, although they showed differing levels of effectiveness (p<0.0001). Globally, the 5-CNL performed best, followed by MTL, GDA and Tick labels. Conclusions The graded 5-CNL label was considered as easy to identify, simple and rapid to understand; it performed well when comparing the products’ nutritional quality. Therefore, it is likely to present advantages in real shopping situations where choices are usually made quickly. PMID:26509679

EffectS of non-nutritive sWeetened beverages on appetITe during aCtive weigHt loss (SWITCH): Protocol for a randomized, controlled trial assessing the effects of non-nutritive sweetened beverages compared to water during a 12-week weight loss period and a follow up weight maintenance period.

PubMed

Masic, U; Harrold, J A; Christiansen, P; Cuthbertson, D J; Hardman, C A; Robinson, E; Halford, J C G

2017-02-01

Acute and medium-term intervention studies suggest that non-nutritive sweeteners (NNS) are beneficial for weight loss, however there is limited human data on the long-term effects of consuming NNS on weight loss, maintenance, and appetite. Further research is therefore required to elucidate the prolonged impact of NNS consumption on these outcome measures. A randomized parallel groups design will be used to assess whether regular NNS beverage intake is equivalent to a water control in promoting weight loss over 12-weeks (weekly weight loss sessions; Phase I), then supporting weight maintenance over 40-weeks (monthly sessions; Phase II) and subsequently independent weight maintenance over 52-weeks (Phase III) in 432 participants. A subset of these participants (n=116) will complete laboratory-based appetite probe days (15 sessions; 3 sessions each at baseline, at the start of phase I and the end of each phase). A separate subset (n=50) will complete body composition scans (DXA) at baseline and at the end of each phase. All participants will regularly be weighed and will complete questionnaires and cognitive tasks to assess changes in body weight and appetitive behaviours. Measures of physical activity and biochemical markers will also be taken. The trial will assess the efficacy of NNS beverages compared to water during a behavioural weight loss and maintenance programme. We aim to understand whether the impact of NNS on weight, dietary adherence and well-being are beneficial or transient and effects on prolonged successful weight loss and weight maintenance through sustained changes in appetite and eating behaviour. Clinical Trials: NCT02591134; registered: 23.10.2015. Crown Copyright © 2016. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

A toxicity profile of osteoprotegerin in the cynomolgus monkey.

PubMed

Smith, Brenda B; Cosenza, Mary Ellen; Mancini, Audrey; Dunstan, Colin; Gregson, Richard; Martin, Steven W; Smith, Susan Y; Davis, Harold

2003-01-01

Osteoprotegerin (OPG) is a novel secreted glycoprotein of the tumor necrosis factor (TNF) receptor superfamily that acts as an antiresorptive agent inhibiting osteoclast maturation. OPG acts by competitively inhibiting the association of the OPG ligand with the RANK receptor on osteoclasts and osteoclast precursors. This inhibition of osteoclasts can lead to excess accumulation of newly synthesized bone and cartilage in vivo. The purpose of this study was to investigate the potential toxicity of a human recombinant form of OPG in the young cynomolgus monkey. OPG was administered by intravenous (i.v.) or subcutaneous (s.c.) injection three times per week for either 4 or 13 weeks. There were no deaths during the study, no clinical signs related to treatment, no effect on body weight, appetence, or ophthalmology. No toxicologically relevant changes in routine laboratory investigations, organ weights, or gross or histopathological findings were observed. Serum ionized calcium and phosphorus were decreased at all dose levels. Evaluations were performed to monitor biochemical markers of bone resorption (N-telopeptide [NTx], deoxypyridinoline [DPD]), bone formation (skeletal alkaline phosphatase [sALP], osteocalcin [OC]), parathyroid hormone [PTH], and bone density of the proximal tibia and distal radius in vivo. Dose-related decreases in NTx and/or DPD were observed at each dose level, with up to a 90% decrease in NTx noted for animals treated i.v. or s.c. at 15 mg/kg. Similar decreases were observed for sALP and OC. PTH was increased for animals treated at 5 and 15 mg/kg (i.v. or s.c.). Trabecular bone density was increased for the majority of males and females treated i.v. or s.c. at 15 mg/kg and males treated i.v. at 5 mg/kg. Microscopic examination of the sternebrae revealed corresponding increases in bone. Decreases in markers of bone turnover, and corresponding increases in bone density, were consistent with the pharmacological action of OPG as an osteoclast inhibitor. The no-observable-adverse-effect level (NOAEL) of OPG was 15 mg/kg.

Effectiveness of Front-Of-Pack Nutrition Labels in French Adults: Results from the NutriNet-Santé Cohort Study.

PubMed

Ducrot, Pauline; Méjean, Caroline; Julia, Chantal; Kesse-Guyot, Emmanuelle; Touvier, Mathilde; Fezeu, Léopold; Hercberg, Serge; Péneau, Sandrine

2015-01-01

To date, no consensus has emerged on the most appropriate front-of-pack (FOP) nutrition label to help consumers in making informed choices. We aimed to compare the effectiveness of the label formats currently in use: nutrient-specific, graded and simple summary systems, in a large sample of adults. The FOP label effectiveness was assessed by measuring the label acceptability and understanding among 13,578 participants of the NutriNet-Santé cohort study, representative of the French adult population. Participants were exposed to five conditions, including four FOP labels: Guideline Daily Amounts (GDA), Multiple Traffic Lights (MTL), 5-Color Nutrition Label (5-CNL), Green Tick (Tick), and a "no label" condition. Acceptability was evaluated by several indicators: attractiveness, liking and perceived cognitive workload. Objective understanding was assessed by the percentage of correct answers when ranking three products according to their nutritional quality. Five different product categories were tested: prepared fish dishes, pizzas, dairy products, breakfast cereals, and appetizers. Differences among the label effectiveness were compared with chi-square tests. The 5-CNL was viewed as the easiest label to identify and as the one requiring the lowest amount of effort and time to understand. GDA was considered as the least easy to identify and to understand, despite being the most attractive and liked label. All FOP labels were found to be effective in ranking products according to their nutritional quality compared with the "no label" situation, although they showed differing levels of effectiveness (p<0.0001). Globally, the 5-CNL performed best, followed by MTL, GDA and Tick labels. The graded 5-CNL label was considered as easy to identify, simple and rapid to understand; it performed well when comparing the products' nutritional quality. Therefore, it is likely to present advantages in real shopping situations where choices are usually made quickly.

Taste at first (person) sight: Visual perspective modulates brain activity implicitly associated with viewing unhealthy but not healthy foods.

PubMed

Basso, Frédéric; Petit, Olivia; Le Bellu, Sophie; Lahlou, Saadi; Cancel, Aïda; Anton, Jean-Luc

2018-06-12

Every day, people are exposed to images of appetizing foods that can lead to high-calorie intake and contribute to overweight and obesity. Research has documented that manipulating the visual perspective from which eating is viewed helps resist temptation by altering the appraisal of unhealthy foods. However, the neural basis of this effect has not yet been examined using neuroimaging methods. Moreover, it is not known whether the benefits of this strategy can be observed when people, especially overweight, are not explicitly asked to imagine themselves eating. Last, it remains to be investigated if visual perspective could be used to promote healthy foods. The present work manipulated camera angles and tested whether visual perspective modulates activity in brain regions associated with taste and reward processing while participants watch videos featuring a hand grasping (unhealthy or healthy) foods from a plate during functional magnetic resonance imagining (fMRI). The plate was filmed from the perspective of the participant (first-person perspective; 1PP), or from a frontal view as if watching someone else eating (third-person perspective; 3PP). Our findings reveal that merely viewing unhealthy food cues from a 1PP (vs. 3PP) increases activity in brain regions that underlie representations of rewarding (appetitive) experiences (amygdala) and food intake (superior parietal gyrus). Additionally, our results show that ventral striatal activity is positively correlated with body mass index (BMI) during exposure to unhealthy foods from a 1PP (vs. 3PP). These findings suggest that unhealthy foods should be promoted through third-person (video) images to weaken the reward associated with their simulated consumption, especially amongst overweight people. It appears however that, as such, manipulating visual perspective fails to enhance the perception of healthy foods. Their promotion thus requires complementary solutions. Copyright © 2018. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Easy Meal

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

1978-01-01

The woman pictured below is sitting down to a nutritious, easily-prepared meal similar to those consumed by Apollo astronauts. The appetizing dishes shown were created simply by adding water to the contents of a Mountain House* Easy Meal package of freeze dried food. The Easy Meal line is produced by Oregon Freeze Dry Foods, Inc., Albany, Oreaon, a pioneer in freeze drying technology and a company long associated with NASA in developing suitable preparations for use on manned spacecraft. Designed to provide nutritionally balanced, attractive hot meals for senior adults, Easy Meal is an offshoot of a 1975-77 demonstration project managed by Johnson Space Center and called Meal System for the Elderly. The project sought ways to help the estimated 3.5 million elderly Americans who are unable to take advantage of existing meal programs. Such services are provided by federal, state and local agencies, but they are not available to many who live in rural areas, or others who are handicapped, temporarily ill or homebound for other reasons. Oregon Freeze Dry Foods was a participant in that multi-agency cooperative project. With its Easy Meal assortment of convenience foods pictured above left, the company is making commercially available meal packages similar to those distributed in the Meal System for the Elderly program. In the freeze drying process, water is extracted from freshly-cooked foods by dehydration at very low temperatures, as low as 50 I degrees below zero. Flavor is locked in by packaging the dried food in pouches which block out moisture and oxygen, the principal causes of food deterioration; thus the food can be stored for long periods without refrigeration. Meals are reconstituted by adding hot or cold water, depending on the type of food, and they are table ready in five to 10 minutes. Oregon Freeze Dry Foods offers five different meal packages and plans to expand the line.

Juice blends--a way of utilization of under-utilized fruits, vegetables, and spices: a review.

PubMed

Bhardwaj, Raju Lal; Pandey, Shruti

2011-07-01

The post-harvest shelf life of maximum of fruits and vegetables is very limited due to their perishable nature. In India more then 20-25 percent of fruits and vegetables are spoiled before utilization. Despite being the world's second largest producer of fruits and vegetables, in India only 1.5 percent of the total fruits and vegetables produced are processed. Maximum amounts of fruit and vegetable juices turn bitter after extraction due to conversion of chemical compounds. In spite of being under utilized, the utilization of highly nutritive fruits and vegetables is very limited due to high acidity, astringency, bitterness, and some other factors. While improving flavor, palatability, and nutritive and medicinal value of various fruit juices such as aonla, mango, papaya, pineapple, citrus, ber, pear, apple, watermelon, and vegetables including bottle gourd, carrot, beet root, bitter gourd, medicinal plants like aloe vera and spices can also be used for juice blending. All these natural products are valued very highly for their refreshing juice, nutritional value, pleasant flavor, and medicinal properties. Fruits and vegetables are also a rich source of sugars, vitamins, and minerals. However, some fruits and vegetables have an off flavor and bitterness although they are an excellent source of vitamins, enzymes, and minerals. Therefore, blending of two or more fruit and vegetable juices with spices extract for the preparation of nutritive ready-to-serve (RTS), beverages is thought to be a convenient and economic alternative for utilization of these fruits and vegetables. Moreover, one could think of a new product development through blending in the form of a natural health drink, which may also serve as an appetizer. The present review focuses on the blending of fruits, under-utilized fruits, vegetables, medicinal plants, and spices in appropriate proportions for the preparation of natural fruit and vegetable based nutritive beverages.

Viability of and Escherichia coli O157:H7 and Listeria monocytogenes in a delicatessen appetizer (yogurt-based) salad as affected by citrus extract (Citrox©) and storage temperature.

PubMed

Tsiraki, Maria I; Yehia, Hany M; Elobeid, Tahra; Osaili, Tareq; Sakkas, Hercules; Savvaidis, Ioannis N

2018-02-01

The antimicrobial effect of citrus extract (at 1 mL/kg [C1] and 2 mL/kg [C2]) on naturally occurring microbiota and inoculated pathogens (E. coli O157:H7 and L. monocytogenes at ca. 6 log cfu/g) in the traditional Greek yogurt-based salad Tzatziki stored at 4, 10, or 21 °C, was examined. Lactic acid bacteria (LAB) were high (8.0-8.5 log cfu/g) and varied only minimally for both the control (untreated) and the citrus extract-treated salad samples, whereas the higher citrus extract concentration yielded the lowest yeast populations, irrespective of temperature, during the entire storage period. Populations of inoculated E. coli (6 log cfu/g) declined in both untreated and citrus extract-treated samples from day 0-70, 35, and 15 at 4, 10, and 21 °C, respectively. Citrus extract had a significant effect on the survival of the inoculated E. coli O157:H7, with reductions of 2.8-4.8 log cfu/g in the citrus extract-treated samples at the end of the storage period. Our data show that L. monocytogenes survived in both untreated and citrus extract-treated samples during the entire storage period, irrespective of the storage temperature. The higher concentration of citrus extract had a significant effect on the survival of L. monocytogenes in the treated samples, and reductions of 1.5-3.0 logs were noted on final day 70, 35 and 15 at 4, 10 and 21 °C, respectively. The results of our study demonstrated the potential of citrus extract as a natural compound that can control the growth of food-borne pathogenic bacteria, such as E. coli O157:H7 and L. monocytogenes in Tzatziki, a yogurt-based salad. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Piperidine alkaloids from Piperretrofractum Vahl. protect against high-fat diet-induced obesity by regulating lipid metabolism and activating AMP-activated protein kinase

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Kim, Kyung Jin; Lee, Myoung-Su; Jo, Keunae

Highlights: {yields} Piperidine alkaloids from Piperretrofractum Vahl. (PRPAs), including piperine, pipernonaline, and dehydropipernonaline, are isolated as the anti-obesity constituents. {yields} PRPA administration significantly reduces body weight gain without altering food intake and fat pad mass. {yields} PRPA reduces high-fat diet-induced triglyceride accumulation in liver. {yields} PRPAs attenuate HFD-induced obesity by activating AMPK and PPAR{delta}, and regulate lipid metabolism, suggesting their potential anti-obesity effects. -- Abstract: The fruits of Piperretrofractum Vahl. have been used for their anti-flatulent, expectorant, antitussive, antifungal, and appetizing properties in traditional medicine, and they are reported to possess gastroprotective and cholesterol-lowering properties. However, their anti-obesity activity remainsmore » unexplored. The present study was conducted to isolate the anti-obesity constituents from P. retrofractum Vahl. and evaluate their effects in high-fat diet (HFD)-induced obese mice. Piperidine alkaloids from P. retrofractum Vahl. (PRPAs), including piperine, pipernonaline, and dehydropipernonaline, were isolated as the anti-obesity constituents through a peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor {delta} (PPAR{delta}) transactivation assay. The molecular mechanism was investigated in 3T3-L1 adipocytes and L6 myocytes. PRPA treatment activated AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) signaling and PPAR{delta} protein and also regulated the expression of lipid metabolism-related proteins. In the animal model, oral PRPA administration (50, 100, or 300 mg/kg/day for 8 weeks) significantly reduced HFD-induced body weight gain without altering the amount of food intake. Fat pad mass was reduced in the PRPA treatment groups, as evidenced by reduced adipocyte size. In addition, elevated serum levels of total cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, total lipid, leptin, and lipase were suppressed by PRPA treatment. PRPA also protected against the development of nonalcoholic fatty liver by decreasing hepatic triglyceride accumulation. Consistent with the in vitro results, PRPA activated AMPK signaling and altered the expression of lipid metabolism-related proteins in liver and skeletal muscle. Taken together, these findings demonstrate that PRPAs attenuate HFD-induced obesity by activating AMPK and PPAR{delta}, and regulate lipid metabolism, suggesting their potential anti-obesity effects.« less

Identity-Specific Reward Representations in Orbitofrontal Cortex Are Modulated by Selective Devaluation

PubMed Central

Howard, James D.

2017-01-01

Goal-directed behavior is sensitive to the current value of expected outcomes. This requires independent representations of specific rewards, which have been linked to orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) function. However, the mechanisms by which the human brain updates specific goals on the fly, and translates those updates into choices, have remained unknown. Here we implemented selective devaluation of appetizing food odors in combination with pattern-based neuroimaging and a decision-making task. We found that in a hungry state, participants chose to smell high-intensity versions of two value-matched food odor rewards. After eating a meal corresponding to one of the two odors, participants switched choices toward the low intensity of the sated odor but continued to choose the high intensity of the nonsated odor. This sensory-specific behavioral effect was mirrored by pattern-based changes in fMRI signal in lateral posterior OFC, where specific reward identity representations were altered after the meal for the sated food odor but retained for the nonsated counterpart. In addition, changes in functional connectivity between the OFC and general value coding in ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) predicted individual differences in satiety-related choice behavior. These findings demonstrate how flexible representations of specific rewards in the OFC are updated by devaluation, and how functional connections to vmPFC reflect the current value of outcomes and guide goal-directed behavior. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT The orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) is critical for goal-directed behavior. A recent proposal is that OFC fulfills this function by representing a variety of state and task variables (“cognitive maps”), including a conjunction of expected reward identity and value. Here we tested how identity-specific representations of food odor reward are updated by satiety. We found that fMRI pattern-based signatures of reward identity in lateral posterior OFC were modulated after selective devaluation, and that connectivity between this region and general value coding ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) predicted choice behavior. These results provide evidence for a mechanism by which devaluation modulates a cognitive map of expected reward in OFC and thereby alters general value signals in vmPFC to guide goal-directed behavior. PMID:28159906

Causes of metabolic syndrome and obesity-related co-morbidities Part 1: A composite unifying theory review of human-specific co-adaptations to brain energy consumption.

PubMed

McGill, Anne-Thea

2014-01-01

The medical, research and general community is unable to effect significantly decreased rates of central obesity and related type II diabetes mellitus (TIIDM), cardiovascular disease (CVD) and cancer. All conditions seem to be linked by the concept of the metabolic syndrome (MetS), but the underlying causes are not known. MetS markers may have been mistaken for causes, thus many treatments are destined to be suboptimal. The current paper aims to critique current paradigms, give explanations for their persistence, and to return to first principles in an attempt to determine and clarify likely causes of MetS and obesity related comorbidities. A wide literature has been mined, study concepts analysed and the basics of human evolution and new biochemistry reviewed. A plausible, multifaceted composite unifying theory is formulated. The basis of the theory is that the proportionately large, energy-demanding human brain may have driven co-adaptive mechanisms to provide, or conserve, energy for the brain. A 'dual system' is proposed. 1) The enlarged, complex cortico-limbic-striatal system increases dietary energy by developing strong neural self-reward/motivation pathways for the acquisition of energy dense food, and (2) the nuclear factor-erythroid 2-related factor 2 (NRF2) cellular protection system amplifies antioxidant, antitoxicant and repair activity by employing plant chemicals, becoming highly energy efficient in humans. The still-evolving, complex human cortico-limbic-striatal system generates strong behavioural drives for energy dense food procurement, including motivating agricultural technologies and social system development. Addiction to such foods, leading to neglect of nutritious but less appetizing 'common or garden' food, appears to have occurred. Insufficient consumption of food micronutrients prevents optimal human NRF2 function. Inefficient oxidation of excess energy forces central and non-adipose cells to store excess toxic lipid. Oxidative stress and metabolic inflammation, or metaflammation, allow susceptibility to infectious, degenerative atherosclerotic cardiovascular, autoimmune, neurodegenerative and dysplastic diseases. Other relevant human-specific co-adaptations are examined, and encompass the unusual ability to store fat, certain vitamin pathways, the generalised but flexible intestine and microbiota, and slow development and longevity. This theory has significant past and future corollaries, which are explored in a separate article by McGill, A-T, in Archives of Public Health, 72: 31.

Identity-Specific Reward Representations in Orbitofrontal Cortex Are Modulated by Selective Devaluation.

PubMed

Howard, James D; Kahnt, Thorsten

2017-03-08

Goal-directed behavior is sensitive to the current value of expected outcomes. This requires independent representations of specific rewards, which have been linked to orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) function. However, the mechanisms by which the human brain updates specific goals on the fly, and translates those updates into choices, have remained unknown. Here we implemented selective devaluation of appetizing food odors in combination with pattern-based neuroimaging and a decision-making task. We found that in a hungry state, participants chose to smell high-intensity versions of two value-matched food odor rewards. After eating a meal corresponding to one of the two odors, participants switched choices toward the low intensity of the sated odor but continued to choose the high intensity of the nonsated odor. This sensory-specific behavioral effect was mirrored by pattern-based changes in fMRI signal in lateral posterior OFC, where specific reward identity representations were altered after the meal for the sated food odor but retained for the nonsated counterpart. In addition, changes in functional connectivity between the OFC and general value coding in ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) predicted individual differences in satiety-related choice behavior. These findings demonstrate how flexible representations of specific rewards in the OFC are updated by devaluation, and how functional connections to vmPFC reflect the current value of outcomes and guide goal-directed behavior. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT The orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) is critical for goal-directed behavior. A recent proposal is that OFC fulfills this function by representing a variety of state and task variables ("cognitive maps"), including a conjunction of expected reward identity and value. Here we tested how identity-specific representations of food odor reward are updated by satiety. We found that fMRI pattern-based signatures of reward identity in lateral posterior OFC were modulated after selective devaluation, and that connectivity between this region and general value coding ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) predicted choice behavior. These results provide evidence for a mechanism by which devaluation modulates a cognitive map of expected reward in OFC and thereby alters general value signals in vmPFC to guide goal-directed behavior. Copyright © 2017 the authors 0270-6474/17/372627-12$15.00/0.

Sodium content in processed foods in Argentina: compliance with the national law.

PubMed

Allemandi, Lorena; Tiscornia, María Victoria; Ponce, Miguel; Castronuovo, Luciana; Dunford, Elizabeth; Schoj, Verónica

2015-06-01

Despite the body of evidence that documents the unfavorable effects of excessive sodium consumption on blood pressure and cardiovascular health, public health efforts to decrease sodium consumption have been limited to a few countries. Argentina is the first country in Latin America to regulate sodium content of processed foods by means of a national law. The objective of this cross-sectional quantitative study is to provide a baseline comparison against the reduction targets set by the national law before its entry into force. Data were collected in February 2014 in a leading supermarket chain located in Buenos Aires. Nutrient data from package labels were analysed for 1,320 products within 14 food groups during the study period. To compare sodium concentration levels with the established maximum levels we matched the collected food groups with the food groups included in the law resulting in a total of 292 products. Data analysis was conducted using SPSS version 20 software. Food groups with the highest median sodium content were sauces and spreads (866.7 mg/100 g), meat and meat products (750 mg/100 g) and snack foods (644 mg/100 g). Categories with the highest sodium content were appetizers (1,415 mg/100 g), sausages (1,050 mg/100 g) and ready-made meals (940.7 mg/100 g). We also found large variability within products from the same food categories. Products included in the national law correspond to 22.1% (n=292) of the surveyed foods. From the 18 food groups, 15 showed median sodium values below the established targets. Products exceeding the established maximum levels correspond to 15.1% (n=44) of the products included in the analysis. This study is the first analysis of food labels to determine sodium concentrations of processed foods in Argentina and to provide a baseline against the national law standards. Upon the completion of this analysis, maximum levels have been achieved by most of the food groups included in the law. Thus, the introduction of further reductions for the existing maximum levels and the establishment of sodium targets for all relevant product categories not included in the law should be considered as the next steps in the process.

Causes of metabolic syndrome and obesity-related co-morbidities Part 1: A composite unifying theory review of human-specific co-adaptations to brain energy consumption

PubMed Central

2014-01-01

One line summary Metabolic syndrome and obesity-related co-morbidities are largely explained by co-adaptations to the energy use of the large human brain in the cortico-limbic-striatal and NRF2 systems. The medical, research and general community is unable to effect significantly decreased rates of central obesity and related type II diabetes mellitus (TIIDM), cardiovascular disease (CVD) and cancer. All conditions seem to be linked by the concept of the metabolic syndrome (MetS), but the underlying causes are not known. MetS markers may have been mistaken for causes, thus many treatments are destined to be suboptimal. The current paper aims to critique current paradigms, give explanations for their persistence, and to return to first principles in an attempt to determine and clarify likely causes of MetS and obesity related comorbidities. A wide literature has been mined, study concepts analysed and the basics of human evolution and new biochemistry reviewed. A plausible, multifaceted composite unifying theory is formulated. The basis of the theory is that the proportionately large, energy-demanding human brain may have driven co-adaptive mechanisms to provide, or conserve, energy for the brain. A ‘dual system’ is proposed. 1) The enlarged, complex cortico-limbic-striatal system increases dietary energy by developing strong neural self-reward/motivation pathways for the acquisition of energy dense food, and (2) the nuclear factor-erythroid 2-related factor 2 (NRF2) cellular protection system amplifies antioxidant, antitoxicant and repair activity by employing plant chemicals, becoming highly energy efficient in humans. The still-evolving, complex human cortico-limbic-striatal system generates strong behavioural drives for energy dense food procurement, including motivating agricultural technologies and social system development. Addiction to such foods, leading to neglect of nutritious but less appetizing ‘common or garden’ food, appears to have occurred. Insufficient consumption of food micronutrients prevents optimal human NRF2 function. Inefficient oxidation of excess energy forces central and non-adipose cells to store excess toxic lipid. Oxidative stress and metabolic inflammation, or metaflammation, allow susceptibility to infectious, degenerative atherosclerotic cardiovascular, autoimmune, neurodegenerative and dysplastic diseases. Other relevant human-specific co-adaptations are examined, and encompass the unusual ability to store fat, certain vitamin pathways, the generalised but flexible intestine and microbiota, and slow development and longevity. This theory has significant past and future corollaries, which are explored in a separate article by McGill, A-T, in Archives of Public Health, 72: 31. PMID:25708524

Plants traditionally used to make Cantonese slow-cooked soup in China.

PubMed

Liu, Yujing; Liu, Qi; Li, Ping; Xing, Deke; Hu, Huagang; Li, Lin; Hu, Xuechen; Long, Chunlin

2018-01-15

Lǎo huǒ liàng tāng (Cantonese slow-cooked soup, CSCS) is popular in Guangdong, China, and is consumed by Cantonese people worldwide as a delicious appetizer. Because CSCS serves as an important part of family healthcare, medicinal plants and plant-derived products are major components of CSCS. However, a collated record of the diverse plant species and an ethnobotanical investigation of CSCS is lacking. Because of globalization along with a renewed interest in botanical and food therapy, CSCS has attracted a growing attention in soup by industries, scientists, and consumers. This study represents the first attempt to document the plant species used for CSCS in Guangdong, China, and the associated ethnomedical function of plants, including their local names, part(s) used, flavors, nature, preparation before cooking, habitats, and conservation status. In 2014-2017, participatory approaches, open-ended conversations, and semi-structured interviews were conducted with 63 local people and 48 soup restaurant owners (111 interviews) to better understand the biocultural context of CSCS, emphasizing ethnobotanical uses of plants in Guangdong Province, China. Product samples and voucher specimens were collected for taxonomic identification. Mention Index (QI), frequency of use index (FUI), and economic index (EI) were adopted to evaluate the significance of each plant in the food supply. A total of 97 plant species belonging to 46 families and 90 genera were recorded as having been used in CSCS in the study area. Recorded menus consisted of one or several plant species, with each one used for different purposes. They were classified into 11 functions, with clearing heat being the most common medicinal function. Of the 97 species, 19 grew only in the wild, 8 species were both wild and cultivated, and 70 species were cultivated. Roots and fruits were the most commonly used plant parts in the preparation of CSCS. According to the national evaluation criteria, six of these species are listed on "China's red list" including two endangered, two critically endangered, one near-threatened, and one vulnerable species. The QI, FUI, and EI of the 97 species in the study varied between 0.09 and 1, 0.23 and 9.95, and 0.45 and 6.58, respectively. As an important part of Cantonese culture, CSCS has been popularized as a local cuisine with a healthcare function. CSCS also reflects the plant species richness and cultural diversity of Guangdong Province. Future research on the safety and efficacy of CSCS as well as on ecological and cultural conservation efforts is needed for the sustainable growth of China's botanical and medicinal plant industry.

Enrichment of Data Publications in Earth Sciences - Data Reports as a Missing Link

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Elger, Kirsten; Bertelmann, Roland; Haberland, Christian; Evans, Peter L.

2015-04-01

During the past decade, the relevance of research data stewardship has been rising significantly. Preservation and publication of scientific data for long-term use, including the storage in adequate repositories has been identified as a key issue by the scientific community as well as by bodies like research agencies. Essential for any kind of re-use is a proper description of the datasets. As a result of the increasing interest, data repositories have been developed and the included research data is accompanied with at least a minimum set of metadata. This metadata is useful for data discovery and a first insight to the content of a dataset. But often data re-use needs more and extended information. Many datasets are accompanied by a small 'readme file' with basic information on the data structure, or other accompanying documents. A source of additional information could be an article published in one of the newly emerging data journals (e.g. Copernicus's ESSD Earth System Science Data or Nature's Scientific Data). Obviously there is an information gap between a 'readme file', that is only accessible after data download (which often leads to less usage of published datasets than if the information was available beforehand) and the much larger effort to prepare an article for a peer-reviewed data journal. For many years, GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences publishes 'Scientific Technical Reports (STR)' as a report series which is electronically persistently available and citable with assigned DOIs. This series was opened for the description of parallel published datasets as 'STR Data'. These are internally reviewed and offer a flexible publication format describing published data in depth, suitable for different datasets ranging from long-term monitoring time series of observatories to field data, to (meta-)databases, and software publications. STR Data offer a full and consistent overview and description to all relevant parameters of a linked published dataset. These reports are readable and citable on their own, but are, of course, closely connected to the respective datasets. Therefore, they give full insight into the framework of the data before data download. This is especially relevant for large and often heterogeneous datasets, like e.g. controlled-source seismic data gathered with instruments of the 'Geophysical Instrument Pool Potsdam GIPP'. Here, details of the instrumentation, data organization, data format, accuracy, geographical coordinates, timing and data completeness, etc. need to be documented. STR Data are also attractive for the publication of historic datasets, e.g. 30-40 years old seismic experiments. It is also possible for one STR Data to describe several datasets, e.g. from multiple diverse instruments types, or distinct regions of interest. The publication of DOI-assigned data reports is a helpful tool to fill the gap between basic metadata and restricted 'readme' information on the one hand and preparing extended journal articles on the other hand. They open the way for informed re-use and, with their comprehensive data description, may act as 'appetizer' for the re-use of published datasets.

The Orion Nebula: The Jewel in the Sword

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

2001-01-01

Orion the Hunter is perhaps the best known constellation in the sky, well placed in the evening at this time of the year for observers in both the northern and southern hemispheres, and instantly recognisable. And for astronomers, Orion is surely one of the most important constellations, as it contains one of the nearest and most active stellar nurseries in the Milky Way, the galaxy in which we live. Here tens of thousands of new stars have formed within the past ten million years or so - a very short span of time in astronomical terms. For comparison: our own Sun is now 4,600 million years old and has not yet reached half-age. Reduced to a human time-scale, star formation in Orion would have been going on for just one month as compared to the Sun's 40 years. Just below Orion's belt, the hilt of his sword holds a great jewel in the sky, the beautiful Orion Nebula . Bright enough to be seen with the naked eye, a small telescope or even binoculars show the nebula to be a few tens of light-years' wide complex of gas and dust, illuminated by several massive and hot stars at its core, the famous Trapezium stars . However, the heart of this nebula also conceals a secret from the casual observer. There are in fact about one thousand very young stars about one million years old within the so-called Trapezium Cluster , crowded into a space less than the distance between the Sun and its nearest neighbour stars. The cluster is very hard to observe in visible light, but is clearly seen in the above spectacular image of this area ( ESO PR 03a/01 ), obtained in December 1999 by Mark McCaughrean (Astrophysical Institute Potsdam, Germany) and his collaborators [1] with the infrared multi-mode ISAAC instrument on the ESO Very Large Telescope (VLT) at Paranal (Chile). Many details are seen in the new ISAAC image ESO PR Photo 03b/01 ESO PR Photo 03b/01 [Preview - JPEG: 400 x 589 pix - 62k] [Normal - JPEG: 800 x 1178 pix - 648k] [Hires - JPEG: 1957 x 2881 pix - 2.7M] ESO PR Photo 03c/01 ESO PR Photo 03c/01 [Preview - JPEG: 400 x 452 pix - 57k] [Normal - JPEG: 800 x 904 pix - 488k] [Hires - JPEG: 2300 x 2600 pix - 3.3M] Caption : PR Photo 03b/01 and PR Photo 03c/01 show smaller, particularly interesting areas of PR Photo 03a/01 . Photo 03b/01 shows the traces of a massive outflow of gas from a very young object embedded in the dense molecular cloud behind the Orion Nebula. Shards of gas from the explosion create shocks and leave bow-waves as they move at speeds of up to 200 km/sec from the source. Photo 03c/01 shows the delicate tracery created at the so-called Bright Bar , as the intense UV-light and strong winds from the hot Trapezium stars eat their way into the surrounding molecular cloud. Also visible are a number of very young red objects partly hidden in the cloud, waiting to be revealed as new members of the Trapezium Cluster . Technical information about these photos is available below. Indeed, at visible wavelengths, the dense cluster of stars at the centre is drowned out by the light from the nebula and obscured by remnants of the dust in the gas from which they were formed. However, at longer wavelengths, these obscuring effects are reduced, and the cluster is revealed. In the past couple of years, several of the world's premier ground- and space-based telescopes have made new detailed infrared studies of the Orion Nebula and the Trapezium Cluster , but the VLT image shown here is the "deepest" wide-field image obtained so far. The large collecting area of the VLT and the excellent seeing of the Paranal site combined to yield this beautiful image, packed full of striking details. Powerful explosions and winds from the most massive stars in the region are evident, as well as the contours of gas sculpted by these stars, and more finely focused jets of gas flowing from the smaller stars. Sharper images from the VLT ESO PR Photo 03d/01 ESO PR Photo 03d/01 [Preview - JPEG: 400 x 490 pix - 28k] [Normal - JPEG: 800 x 980 pix - 192k] [Hi-Res - JPEG: 2273 x 2784 pix - 976k] Caption : PR Photo 03d/01 shows a small section of the observational data (in one infrared spectral band only, here reproduced in B/W) on which PR Photo 03a/01 is based. The field is centred on one of the famous Orion silhouette disks (Orion 114-426) (it is located approximately halfway between the centre and the right edge of PR Photo 03c/01 ). The dusty disk itself is seen edge-on as a dark streak against the background emission of the Orion Nebula, while the bright fuzzy patches on either side betray the presence of the embedded parent star that illuminates tenuous collections of dust above its north and south poles to create these small reflection nebulae. Recent HST studies suggest that the very young Orion 114-426 disk - that is thirty times bigger than our present-day Solar System - may already be showing signs of forming its own proto-planetary system. Technical information about this photo is available below. It is even possible to see disks of dust and gas surrounding a few of the young stars, as silhouettes in projection against the bright background of the nebula. Many of these disks are very small and usually only seen on images obtained with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) [2]. However, under the best seeing conditions on Paranal, the sharpness of VLT images at infrared wavelengths approaches that of the HST in this spectral band, revealing some of these disks, as shown in PR Photo 03d/01 . Indeed, the theoretical image sharpness of the 8.2-m VLT is more than three times better than that of the 2.4-m HST. Thus, the VLT will soon yield images of small regions with even higher resolution by means of the High-Resolution Near-Infrared Camera (CONICA) and the Nasmyth Adaptive Optics System (NAOS) that will compensate the smearing effect introduced by the turbulence in the atmosphere. Later on, extremely sharp images will be obtained when all four VLT telescopes are combined to form the Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI). With these new facilities, astronomers will be able to make very detailed studies - among others, they will be looking for evidence that the dust and gas in these disks might be agglomerating to form planets. Free-floating planets in Orion? Recently, research teams working at other telescopes have claimed to have already seen planets in the Orion Nebula, as very dim objects, apparently floating freely between the brighter stars in the cluster. They calculated that if those objects are of the same age as the other stars, if they are located in the cluster, and if present theoretical predictions of the brightness of young stars and planets are correct, then they should have masses somewhere between 5 and 15 times that of planet Jupiter. Astronomer Mark McCaughrean is rather sceptical about this: " Calling these objects "planets" of course sounds exciting, but that interpretation is based on a number of assumptions. To me it seems equally probable that they are somewhat older, higher-mass objects of the "brown dwarf" type from a previous generation of star formation in Orion, which just happen to lie near the younger Trapezium Cluster today. Even if these objects were confirmed to have very low masses, many astronomers would disagree with them being called planets, since the common idea of a planet is that it should be in orbit around a star ". He explains: " While planets form in circumstellar disks, current thinking is that these Orion Nebula objects probably formed in the same way as do stars and brown dwarfs, and so perhaps we'd be better off talking about them just as low-mass brown dwarfs " and also notes that " similar claims of "free-floating planets" found in another cluster associated with the star Sigma Orionis have also been met with some scepticism ". Here, as in other branches of science, claim, counter-claim, scepticism and amicable controversy are typical elements of the scientific search for the truth. Thus the goal must now be to look at these objects in much more detail, and to try to determine their real properties and formation history. Comprehensive VLT study of Orion well underway This is indeed one of the main aims of the present major VLT study, of which the image shown here is decidedly a good start and a great "appetizer"! In fact, even the present photo - that is based on quite short exposures with a total of only 13.5 min at each image point (4.5 min in each of the three bands) - is already of sufficient quality to raise questions about some of the "very low-mass objects". McCaughrean acknowledges that " some of these very faint objects were right at the limit of earlier studies and hence the determination of their brightnesses was less precise. The new, more accurate VLT data show several of them to be intrinsically brighter than previously thought and thus more massive; also some other objects seem not to be there at all ". Clearly, the answer is to look even deeper in order to get more accurate data and to discover more of these objects. More infrared images were obtained for the present programme in December 2000 by the VLT team. They will now be combined with the earlier data shown here to create a very deep survey of the central area of the Orion Nebula. One of the great strengths of the VLT is its comprehensive instrumentation programme, and the team intends to carry out a detailed spectral analysis of the very faintest objects in the cluster, using the VLT VIMOS and NIRMOS multiobject spectrometers, as these become available. Only then, by analysing all these data, will it become possible to determine the masses, ages, and motions of the very faintest members of the Trapezium Cluster , and to provide a solid answer to the tantalising question of their origin. The beautiful infrared image shown here may just be a first "finding chart" made at the beginning of a long-term research project, but it already carries plenty of new astrophysical information. For the astronomers, images like these and the follow-up studies will help to solve some of the fascinating and perplexing questions about the birth and early lives of stars and their planetary systems. Note [1] The new VLT data covering the Orion Nebula and Trapezium Cluster were obtained as part of a long-term project by Mark McCaughrean (Principal Investigator, Astrophysical Institute Potsdam [AIP], Germany), João Alves (ESO, Garching, Germany), Hans Zinnecker (AIP) and Francesco Palla (Arcetri Observatory, Florence, Italy). The data also form part of the collaborative research being undertaken by the European Commission-sponsored Research Training Network on "The Formation and Evolution of Young Star Clusters" (RTN1-1999-00436), led by the Astrophysical Institute Potsdam, and including the Arcetri Observatory in Florence (Italy), the University of Cambridge (UK), the University of Cardiff (UK), the University of Grenoble (France), the University of Lisbon (Portugal) and the CEA Saclay (France). [2] To compare the present VLT infrared image with the more familiar view of the Orion Nebula in optical light, the ST-ECF has prepared an image covering a similar field from data taken with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope WFPC2 camera and extracted and processed by Jeremy Walsh from the ESO/ST-ECF archive. This 4-colour composite emphasises the light from the gaseous nebula rather than from the stars, and there is dramatic difference from the infrared view which sees much deeper into the region. The HST image is available at http://www.stecf.org/epo/support/orion/. Technical information about the photos PR Photo 03a/01 of the Orion Nebula and the Trapezium Cluster was made using the near-infrared camera ISAAC on the ESO 8.2-m VLT ANTU telescope on December 20 - 21, 1999. The full field measures approx. 7 x 7 arcmin, covering roughly 3 x 3 light-years (0.9 x 0.9 pc) at the distance of the nebula (about 1500 light-years, or 450 pc). This required a 9-position mosaic (3 x 3 grid) of ISAAC pointings; at each pointing, a series of images were taken in each of the near-infrared J s - (centred at 1.24 µm wavelength), H- (1.65 µm), and K s - (2.16 µm) bands. North is up and East left. The total integration time for each pixel in the mosaic was 4.5 min in each band. The seeing FWHM (full width at half maximum) was excellent, between 0.35 and 0.50 arcsec throughout. Point sources are detected at the 3-sigma level (central pixel above background noise) of 20.5, 19.2, and 18.8 magnitude in the J s -, H-, and K s -bands, respectively, mainly limited by the bright background emission of the nebula. After removal of instrumental signatures and the bright infrared sky background, all frames in a given band were carefully aligned and adjusted to form a seamless mosaic. The three monochromatic mosaics were then unsharp-masked and scaled logarithmically to reduce the enormous dynamic range and enhance the faint features of the outer nebula. The mosaics were then combined to create this colour-coded image, with the J s -band being rendered as blue, the H-band as green, and the K s -band as red. A total of 81 individual ISAAC images were merged to form this mosaic. PR Photos 03b-c/01 show smaller sections of the large image; the areas are 2.6 x 3.2 and 4.2 x 3.8 arcmin (1.1 x 1.4 and 1.8 x 1.6 light-years), respectively. PR Photo 03d/01 is based on J s band data only, to ensure good visibility (maximum contrast) of the Orion 114-426 silhouette disk against the background nebula. The three highest spatial resolution images covering this region were accurately aligned to form a mosaic with a resolution of 0.4 arcsec FWHM (180 Astronomical Units [AU]) in the vicinity of the disk. A 29 x 29 arcsec (0.2 x 0.2 light-year) section of this smaller mosaic was cut out and the square root of the intensity taken to enhance the disk. The disk is roughly 2 arcsec or 900 AU in diameter. North is up, East left.

HWHAP_Ep4_Space Food

NASA Image and Video Library

2017-07-28

Gary Jordan (Host): Houston we have a podcast. Welcome to the official podcast of the NASA Johnson Space Center, episode 4, Space Food. I'm Gary Jordan and I'll be your host today. So this is the podcast where we bring in the experts, NASA scientists, engineers, astronauts, all the coolest people that tell you all the coolest parts about NASA. So today we're talking about space food with Takiyah Sirmons, she's a food scientist here at the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. And we had a great discussion about the science behind what astronauts eat, what it is, how they make it and how they have a long shelf life and what happens to an astronaut's palate after living in space for several months. So with no further delay let's go light speed and jump right ahead to our talk with Dr. Takiyah Sirmons, enjoy. [ Music ] Host: Okay, well Takiyah thank you so much for taking the time to come here today and talk about space food. This is one of my favorite topics because it's space food, right. Right, when you think about astronauts you think about what do they eat in space and then you have all these preconceived notions about what they eat in space. And so I thought first of all I think we should start the episode before we even get into anything by just debunking a couple of myths, right. Takiyah Sirmons: Let's debunk those myths. Host: Let's debunk it right off the bat, did NASA invent Tang? Takiyah Sirmons: NASA did not invent Tang. Tang was already in existence, it was created in the late 50s by a company called Mission Foods and we flew it in the early 60s when we were trying to figure out our food system. So John Glenn tasted Tang in space and it boosted its popularity and ever since then it's been synonymous with the space program but we did not create it, we just purchased it, repackaged it and then sent it into space. Host: See I feel like that's just always one of those things people always bring up though. They say oh Tang that's such a NASA thing and I guess they just got tied together for whatever reason. But they did use Tang. Takiyah Sirmons: We did use Tang, we still use Tang. We still use Tang until today but we did not invent it, we did not. Host: It's just because of that rehydratable, the idea that you don't have to ship up these bags of water, you can just ship up bags of powder. Takiyah Sirmons: Yah, powder flavored essentially so it's already convenient, you just put it into the beverage, package and you add water to it and you have a great flavored beverage. And it worked we don't try to reinvent the wheel here and we had a product that was on the market that was great so we just sent it. Host: All right, cool, all right there's one more that at least comes to the top of my head and you might be able to add a couple more but astronaut ice cream. Takiyah Sirmons: Oh, astronaut ice cream, that's been plaguing the crew for a long time now. So the ice cream that you see in the novelty stores with the strawberry, vanilla, chocolate swirl. We have never sent anything that is remotely like that. Host: That's what I thought, yeah. Takiyah Sirmons: Back in the Apollo days we sent ice cream one time and it was the cube form, so if you think back to tube and cube days it was a pressed food substance that was coated so it didn't have a lot of crumbs. Host: Interesting. Takiyah Sirmons: And it flew one time at the request of an astronaut and it hasn't flown since, no one else has requested it after that. From time to time the astronauts get ice cream if there is a science experiment that requires refrigeration or a freezer on the way back. We will load up the empty unit with ice cream or if it's plugged in, if it's powered up. And they'll get ice cream single serve ice cream every once in a while but it's very, very rare. Only other time that they may have had ice cream was during the sky lab days and that's because we had refrigeration and a freezer on that particular vessel. Host: That makes sense, okay. Well, I feel like those astronauts should consider themselves real lucky because they are the few that actually get to have it sometimes. >> Every once in a while. Host: Ice cream in space, so cool. Okay so it's nice to see you again after the super bowl thing that we did. Takiyah Sirmons: Yeah, that was the last time we got together. Host: Exactly, it was so fun, so they had super bowl live downtown and NASA just came up and did like a culinary event and we talked about food science. Takiyah Sirmons: Yeah. Host: We talked about you know, what we have to do different because it wasn't really a cooking show, it was like this is what NASA does even though we were preparing meals and having everyone sample them, it was pretty cool. And there is, you're not considered chefs right, you're considered food scientists because there's a whole different mindset when it comes to food in space, right? Takiyah Sirmons: Yeah, so you're taking a product that everyone is used to, everyone is familiar with food, food is very important, our emotions are tied to food and you're getting it to last for an extended period. And so I think that's where the beauty of this profession comes in, you're solving problems with an everyday product that you need, you need for life. Host: So is that kind of the main purpose of space food is your job to make the food las as long as possible or is there more to that? Takiyah Sirmons: Well, there's a nutrition component obviously so it's a prepackaged food system so imagine if you were on a diet plan and the only thing that you could have is what a company sent you in a box. You know you need to make sure it is nutritionally sound, that the calories are balanced and that it tastes good. Because if you've eaten the same product for over I want to say six months or so you're going to get tired of it. So that's where we come in to play is we want to have foods that are nutritious, that offer a wide variety but they're also appetizing at the same point. And it's a really delicate balance, a lot of people think that oh it's just food, you can just make it but it's a lot of moving parts that go into making space food. Host: Yeah, yeah, there really are so like let's just go right into it, right so space food, why are we talking now about space food versus just -- do they have a kitchen up in the International Space Station right now, what is different about space food? Like the overall concept of it? Takiyah Sirmons: The difference is that it's already prepared for you, so most of the food that they have it's a prepackaged food system like I said before so we do all of the cooking and all of the processing here on earth. We send it up and they can either reheat it in the case of thermal stabilized products that I'll guess we'll get into in a minute. Host: Sure. Takiyah Sirmons: And then they'll add water to our rehydratable products. And so all of the cooking and all of the preparation has been done for them they just need to prepare it in that moment how they're going to eat it and then if they want to remix the foods in any ways, then they have the opportunity to do that. But there's no room for a kitchen, they have a food preparation area where they can make the meals and then eat them on the go and they are also very limited in the amount of time that they have. So anything that we give them they have to be able to heat up in about 15 minutes or so and then go onto the next task. So it's not enough time in the day for them to actually cook foods. Host: Right, they have like -- what do they allot, like an hour for like lunch but they don't even allot too much time, they allot sometime in the beginning and at the end of the day but not really like -- I think they allot like an hour for lunch. Takiyah Sirmons: Yeah, yeah. Host: So that's pretty much it. Takiyah Sirmons: It's a really tight window, so I mean if you want just eat and relax during that time you don't have the time to actually prepare the food. Host: Makes sense, okay so it's not ingredients based packaging, it's meal based packaging. Takiyah Sirmons: It is meal based packaging, so we package entrees separately and then we have a number of side dishes, a number of snacks, a number of deserts and they can pick and choose from any menu of items that they want or any variety that they want. Host: So they pick and choose all the time or do they have like specific like for on this day you're going to eat this for lunch, so they don't like have meal planning. Takiyah Sirmons: No, so we put together what's called a standard menu and it's basically a suggested menu that would get them to the amount of calories that they need per day. But when they eat it's prepared pantry style, so we'll send up a container that has x amount of side dishes, x amount of entrees, x amount of vegetables and they can pick from those containers. We only as that they open one container at a time and so that's how we know if the inventory is getting low, we just assume that they've eaten everything in that container once it's opened. Host: Got it, you have to keep track so -- Takiyah Sirmons: We don't mandate that they eat according to a certain menu, we've tried that in the past and we've seen that it doesn't necessarily work. The only time that they have to eat according to a specific menu is if they are participating in a nutritional study. So they're tracking actual foods that they have and how their bodies react to that. That's the only time but that's never the entire duration of their stay. Host: Yeah, they have experiments like that, right where they're actually doing sort of like meal planning. Takiyah Sirmons: Correct they have shorter duration experimenting, during that time we'll track exactly what they eat and have to eat according to that menu but outside of that they just kind of grab what they want. Host: Okay, so that's what they do for the most part. Takiyah Sirmons: For the most part. Host: Yeah, they're just going in and having whatever they feel like having that day. I know so Peggy she got her mission extended and she's starting to get to that point where she's out there for a long time and starting to you know, the menu can only be so big, so -- what was her favorite that she just mentioned, chicken, was it chicken fajitas that was her favorite. Yeah, but you obviously have your favorites and things that are good but then you're going to have -- you can't please everyone right. It's just like any food at home right. So everyone has their preferences. Takiyah Sirmons: Everyone has their preference and after a while they start remixing meals, we make a mac and cheese product and we make a chili product and you can mix them together and make chili mac and cheese. And they do that all the time, eating the same thing for six months, you're like okay I got to find a new way to develop this product. Host: Okay, so you open up some containers and like you said they're pantry based organizations so you have like you're snacks, pet package and you have like everything, so how are the meals and you hinted at this before, like thermostabilized is one way of packaging a meal, right, so. Takiyah Sirmons: It's one way of preserving a food product, so everything that we send to the International Space Station has to be shelf-stable. We don't have refrigerators, we don't have freezers, we only have that for a short period of time during sky lab days and that was like our early stab at a space station type vehicle. Right now we don't have the power to support those type of preservations so refrigerators or freezers so everything is shelf-stable meaning that we have to preserve the foods before we send them out of earth. So the primary methods are thermostabilized which is essentially canning but in a flexible pouch. So if you've seen MRE pouches that the military uses. Host: Yeah, meals ready to eat, they're just like these brown rectangular packages. Takiyah Sirmons: Yeah, so we use the same technology, basically a canning system. So a giant pressure cooker you kill any bacteria using heat as well as pressure and -- Host: Thermostabilized [cross-talk]. Takiyah Sirmons: And so about half of our foods are produced that way and then other foods are produced the freeze drying and I think most people are familiar with freeze dried foods. You basically pull all the moisture out of a food product so that nothing can grow. And both products are great because they're light-weight, where we can pack more into our containers because they don't weigh as much and all they have to do is add the water back when they get to the space station. Host: Nice, is there a benefit to doing one versus the other for particular foods? Takiyah Sirmons: So, it depends on the foods product some can't withstand the processing for thermal processing so say if you have a product that has a lot of cheese in it you have a lot of negative effects when you apply that high of a temperature to it so those do better when you freeze dry them. And so sometimes we can try the foods both ways and you'll see which ever one comes out better. It just depends on the food product. Host: Nice, okay for the rehydratable ones, I'm guessing so since the thermostabilized, MRE you can technically just rip open the package and start eating, right. Takiyah Sirmons: You can heat them up and eat them. Host: Oh, so they do have the ability to heat them up. Takiyah Sirmons: Yeah, they have a small food warmer on station that they can put their pouches into, they don't get terribly hot but I mean it's warm enough so that you can enjoy it. Host: Okay, so it's like the space version of I guess a microwave but just not as fast maybe. Takiyah Sirmons: Yeah, exactly. Host: And then so for the freeze dried ones that one they actually have to rehydrate, right, they have to stick it in the machine that gives it water and then what do they let it sit for a while? Takiyah Sirmons: Correct, they have a rehydration station on [inaudible] and on all of our food products we tell them how much water they need to add, whether or not it's room temperature or has to be warm water. They'll inject the product and it rehydrates within 10 to 15 minutes. Again, they don't have a lot of time to wait for their products to rehydrate and then they can put it in the food warmer if they want it warmer or they could put it into a small chiller if they want it cool. And then they're able to enjoy the product that way. Host: Nice. Takiyah Sirmons: It takes a little bit longer to prepare than the thermal stabilized products but I think the quality sometimes is a lot better. Host: Interesting, okay yeah because it goes through -- okay I guess the process of that makes it actually taste better. Takiyah Sirmons: Well, the texture is preserved a little bit, if you imagine just cooking something, basically cooking it to death versus something where you pull the water out and then you add it back into the same place, it's a slightly better texture. Host: Oh, okay, see these are things I'm thinking like regular food, like cooking over a pan you know, you don't normally think about this stuff. Okay so I've seen that machine before that they use to rehydrate their meals. They have a dial like you said they can put a certain amount of liquid into it, so however many milliliters it takes to rehydrate that particular food. Takiyah Sirmons: Yes. Host: So, what foods take a little bit more water than others and why? Takiyah Sirmons: It depends, products that have obviously if you have more of a food product in the package it's going to take slightly more water. Depending on if there's sugar in the product or not that may not require as much water to rehydrate. They also adjust the amount of water that they put in so we may be do our testing on earth and say hey you need 75 milliliters, they may not like their food that watery so they'll just dial it back a little bit. So it just really depends on the product and preferences once they get into space. Host: Yeah, so I guess they just learn from experience in that kind of instance whereas it's just like oh that one was a little bit too watery for me, maybe next time I'll use the same thing because it was good but just a little bit less water. Takiyah Sirmons: Yeah, and it takes a couple of times to I guess learn the product. Host: Nice. So you work in the food lab so I'm assuming you've tried a bunch of the different meals so. Takiyah Sirmons: I like food. Host: Yeah, so what are some of your favorites? Takiyah Sirmons: I really like the meatloaf, I think it's really flavorful, it's better than the meatloaf that I make at home, I don't know if that's saying a lot. I'm really fond of anything sweet so the dessert category I'm always dipping in a dessert category, we have chocolate pudding cake, lemon carrot cake, cherry blueberry cobbler so those are probably some of my favorites. Host: I've tried the cherry blueberry cobbler. Takiyah Sirmons: Do you like that? Host: That one is really good, yes. Takiyah Sirmons: Anything sweet I think is [inaudible]. Host: So, I know in space I think it's a little bit different because I guess there's something where the astronauts over time start to lose a little bit of their taste sensitivity, so they start to enjoy spicier foods but is there a reason for that? Takiyah Sirmons: So the perception of taste changes a little bit. Number one they're in microgravity so there's a fluid shift and so it's kind of like eating with a head cold. There's still flavor there but everything is muted and so the preference for spicy foods is because you can always taste spicy food it gives you a little bit more kick. And so we always provide a variety of condiments. They have pepper on station, not in the powder form but -- not in the granulated form I'm sorry, it's dissolved in an oil so they can squeeze a drop and touch it to the product and they can spice up their foods. We have a number of hot sauce, hot sauce is always on the menu, different kinds of hot sauce. Host: I love hot sauce, I would bring so much hot sauce if I went up to orbit. Takiyah Sirmons: Well, you live in Texas [cross-talk] so a lot of hot sauce to spice up their foods. One of the favorites is shrimp cocktail because it has a spicy kick in it and I guess anything, yeah spicy food. Host: Anything spicy, yeah so how about sweet, is sweet a little bit enhanced or is the sweetness muted so they add more sugar or something like that? Takiyah Sirmons: You know, I've not heard that they add more sugar, I haven't had very many complaints about sweet products, I think it comes down to a preference if you like sweet products before you go into space you'll still have a sweet tooth when you go into space and vice-versa. Host: Okay, does preference change at all? Takiyah Sirmons: I've heard that preference does change so before any crew member goes into space they sit down with our dietician and we have one dietician on staff who essentially shows them the entire menu, so they'll work their way through all 200 different menu items. Host: Sounds like a great day, a great day. Takiyah Sirmons: They do it over several days, maybe four different times they have lunch with us and it's just so they know what to expect and they understand how the food is going to taste when they get into space. Or hopefully how it's going to taste when they get into space. They rate all the products and then items that are scored pretty high, we add those to their crew specific container which is essentially like a bonus container, it's separate from the standard menu so it's just for that particular crew member. And we do that in case they really like one item and we don't provide enough of it in the standard menu, they can have some just for themselves. Host: All right. Takiyah Sirmons: So we've heard that they come into evaluate food and they score it really high and then when they get into space they say oh I don't want this product anymore, so it's really hard to accommodate that. Host: Wow, that would stink if you had to -- if you really enjoyed one item and you're like for example the cherry blueberry cobbler and you're like oh that's my favorite dessert I'm going to have a bunch of that and then you put it in your personal and you take up all this space then you're like I really don't want it, I've had too much cherry blueberry cobbler. Takiyah Sirmons: You know what I mean, you live and you learn. Host: Yeah, I guess. Takiyah Sirmons: They trade a lot of foods on space station, so if you said you wanted one product and it doesn't taste the same when you get into space, I'm sure someone else would like that product. So it works out usually. Host: So I mean beyond preparing specifically for the International Space Station because that's where we're flying right now. You sit them down and you go through the whole menu to select what they're going to have aboard but is there any other, are there any other processes before they go up where you are preparing in a sense? Takiyah Sirmons: Preparing them for -- Host: Preparing either the meals or like how do you get ready for that, so do you sit down with the dietician and then select your meals and then you are busy preparing that food for the next couple months, like what other steps are there? Takiyah Sirmons: You mean in the lab where we prepare? Host: Yeah in the lab, yeah. Takiyah Sirmons: Oh, so we keep inventory, so like I said before all the food is packed according to category and we ask that they just open one container at a time per category. So once they've opened it, they'll scan it and we'll get a message saying hey they've opened their breakfast items which means that that is no longer in inventory. So we'll at that point go and prepare more breakfast items in the lab and have them available for the next shipment. Host: So yeah, yeah so it's more like you're watching what everyone is doing in orbit. It's not necessarily like you know, they sit down, like this is what I want and then you're preparing their meals for their orbit specifically. Takiyah Sirmons: No, no, no, no we don't do it that way because they eat according to a standard menu, no for their crew specific containers if it's something that we don't have on the menu, so say we send up granola bars, a generic form of granola bar. If you have a certain brand that you're loyal to we will go to the store and buy that brand for you as long as it's flight compatible. Meaning that it doesn't have a lot of crumbs, it's not very liquidy. It's not going to produce a lot of free liquid in space. We'll repackage it and send it into space for you so those items we will do on a case by case basis. If you say you know, I really like this brand of chocolate granola bar we will go and get that for you and package it. Host: All right, okay, I'm trying to think of other things that I would probably want to package but I'm thinking of a lot of crumby stuff so that's one thing they have to be wary of right, is because crumbs are not good to have on orbit because I guess they fly around. Takiyah Sirmons: Yeah, I mean it's a closed environment, if you don't eat it in space it's going to float around and it's going to stick somewhere. It may get stuck in your eye, it's going to get stuck in equipment, we just don't know where it's going to land to we try to avoid that we don't send chips into space for that reason but you can have crackers. Host: Oh, okay because they're less crumby, okay that makes a lot of sense. So I know another one is bread, right you can't ship bread up because bread is crumby and instead they use tortillas. Takiyah Sirmons: Right, they have tortillas and we have one type of bread product that we send up and it's extended shelf life bread and we purchase that and then we send it into space. But primarily when they want to have a sandwich or something on the go they use tortillas because it's just really convenient. Host: Yeah. Takiyah Sirmons: Yeah, so traditional bread that you find on the shelf we can't send that up, the shelf life isn't long enough and then it produces too many crumbs. Host: All right, so what else has the food lab learned just from, now that you've been flying space, flying food to space for so long, what have you sort of learned along the way. Like bread for example, thinking about crumbs, what other things have you learned along the way and kind of adapted to the menu that you have now. Takiyah Sirmons: Gees, lessons learned from flying in space. I'd like to say that the hardest thing to control is the human factor of eating in space. So like I said before we don't dictate what they eat in space because we've tried that in the past and it doesn't necessarily work. Host: Because they want to eat what they want to eat. Takiyah Sirmons: Yeah, and I mean that's a human factor that you can't control for. So you have people who are very brilliant people that are going into space but there's a psychological component that goes along with eating and when you eat something it reminds you of home, there's comfort foods that you have, you can't always mandate what someone does or doesn't want to eat. And so I think that's been one of our, I guess our biggest lessons learned. Host: So I guess it's a lot of planning then is really what the lessons come down to as you're trying to plan something diverse or if someone wants something you can deliver [inaudible]. Takiyah Sirmons: Right and that's been the driving force behind the food lab here at JSC, we started from tube and cube days and we were providing nutrition but it was very good, it wasn't very appetizing and we learned quickly that you had to provide something that at least mimicked or resembled food here on earth. And so that's what we've been doing sense the beginning of the space program when we were allowing humans to eat in space is just trying to improve it. And get something that's closer to what you normally have here on earth. Host: So I mean working with space food and designing food that has to be nutritionally balanced for the astronauts, what have you learned that you've taken into your personal life about food. Little tips and tricks that maybe us at home can take into account. Just like maybe I should have you know, I know there's a lot of fad diets out there right, so people are eliminating carbohydrates starting to eat more proteins. Or something like that, is there anything that you've learned just from creating food for astronauts on board? Takiyah Sirmons: I would say that seasonings go a very long way. Prior to coming into the food lab I seasoned everything with salt and pepper. And we had a large sodium reduction initiative in our food lab a couple years ago, we were finding that the astronauts, some of the astronauts were having vision problems from having high blood pressure in space [cross-talk]. So we reduced the sodium to reduce blood pressure and a long with that you had to reformulate a lot of your products and figure out different ways to season them. And don't under estimate the power of good seasoning, with herbs and spices and so now in my personal life I season a lot more with those. They're slightly more expensive but they go a further way than just salt and pepper. Host: So it's eliminating sodium from your or at least reducing sodium. Takiyah Sirmons: We're not eliminating it. Host: Reducing and then seasoning them with different things other than salt. Takiyah Sirmons: Yes, in my personal life I've learned how to do that. Host: Okay, all right, that's a good one, I'm going to take that one back and I'm the same way I like putting salt and pepper on everything. Because it's a good neutral seasoning and it enhances the flavor of whatever you're eating without necessarily changing it and yeah but I guess that's a bummer because I really like salt. Takiyah Sirmons: You can have your salt. Host: Okay so up on board they're going to have their preferences, right, we've been talking about this but do they share meals, right and this in an International space station, so do they share internationally? Takiyah Sirmons: So the U.S. provides about half of the food for the International Space Station and then our international partners, primarily Russia provides the other half of the foods. The astronauts that come and evaluate foods in house, they are U.S. astronauts but it's not uncommon once they get into space to begin trading food with the Russians and vice-versa. So it's a lot of trading that goes on it just kind of depends on their preference, if they see something they like then they'll try it and then they can request Russian food in their crew specific containers if they really like an item. So the next time we have a vehicle go up we can send those foods. But very common for them to trade foods amongst themselves. Because we get curious after a while. Host: Yeah, what are you guys eating, I want to know what that is, so. And they package theirs differently right, so you're talking about in the U.S. we package, thermostabilized, we do the dehydrated or what did you say, freeze dried. Takiyah Sirmons: Freeze dried foods. Host: Freeze dried foods and they do theirs in cans. Takiyah Sirmons: Yeah, they still use a can system which means that their food warmer is slightly different so they have a -- their food warmer allows you to drop the cans into a slot and they warm it that way. And our foods obviously don't fit in that particular configurations. So it's very different, the one advantage to moving to a flexible pouch which we use is that it's a light lighter so you can send more food up. Host: Oh, okay, nice yeah I do like -- it's something you have to think about right especially when you're launching things to space you got to make sure that weight is money right. Takiyah Sirmons: Yeah weight is money. Host: Yeah, so you got to reduce that and that makes a lot of sense. So going back to the lab, you know, when you're talking about sharing but you do have to prepare it and you said you're preparing -- you realize the inventory of what's on board and then prepare it that way. What's that like, what does preparing entail, like are you making dish by dish and putting them into packages. Like what's the process to get from a meal here on the ground packaged and ready to go, shipped up to the International Space Station? Takiyah Sirmons: So it's kind of a batch process, we will make maybe 100 pounds of food, 80 to 100 pounds of food depending on the process we'll determine how long it takes so with thermal stabilized foods you'll make a large kettle and then you'll put the food into individual servings sizes and so one of those collectable pouches is a serving of food. So say you take 160 grams, you'll package it, you'll seal it and then you'll put the entire batch into a retort, which is basically a giant pressure cooker. And that retort will run at a high temperature, high pressure for say an hour and then you'll take all those packages out, inspect them one by one and then they will be stored until it's time to send those. For freeze dried foods the process is a little bit longer because it can take up to a week to remove all that moisture in our freeze driers. So the process starts about the same, you'll buy ingredients from the grocery store, you'll inspect all of the ingredients. Make your batch of foods and then you'll either freeze dry them into individual servings or into one large pan, And then from there you take the pan of product and then you'll put it into individual servings, package it and then store it until you're ready to use it. So quite a long time, it is a process. Host: But you have to do that right, you can't, you've got to make sure the food is going to be good. Takiyah Sirmons: Correct. Host: When you send it up both in terms of taste obviously but in terms of quality. Takiyah Sirmons: Correct, correct. Host: Okay, so let's see we talked about shelf life, it's one of the more important things, so you're going through this process for a reason, it lasts a long time. Takiyah Sirmons: Right. Host: So what is a typical shelf life of space food? Takiyah Sirmons: Again it depends on the product, we try to have an inventory that will last for at least six months. Six months on space station, our thermostabilized foods because of the processing those can last from one year up to two year and then it can last beyond that depending on what the product is. But we definitely shoot for at least six months on space station and that just allows us enough time to prepare more foods and to get another vehicle up. Host: So what are the steps that need to happen to take it beyond that? Takiyah Sirmons: So if we needed to extend it beyond whatever shelf life we assigned it. Host: Yeah. Takiyah Sirmons: So we have a control set that we have on earth, it's housed here at JSC, anytime that we make a product and we package it we'll pull a couple samples and keep them in storage here. And so if there's a situation where we have to extend the shelf life we as a team will evaluate those products and make sure that it's till acceptable. So if I'm not going to eat it on earth, I would never ask you to eat it in space. So we don't do anything we're not willing to [inaudible]. Host: Okay, so you prepare it to last that long, you've packaged it, you've gone through that whole process what about getting it to space, how does that happen? How do you get from the lab and I guess how much do you put in a single cargo vehicle to get to space? Takiyah Sirmons: So there's no solid answer for that it really depends on how much space is available on that vehicle and what the inventory looks like on ISS. Host: So it's constantly changing. > Takiyah Sirmons: > It's constantly changing, no vehicle has the same amount of weight put into that. With that being said we don't have our own vehicle that we use, we use commercial vehicles, so Space-X and Orbital now those will dock with the International Space station, they'll unload the food and they will load up any trash or anything that needs to come back or experiments that need to come back. We don't send that on our own. Host: Oh, okay, so it changes just based on whatever you have available on that [inaudible]. Takiyah Sirmons: Yeah, it's all inventory driven so whatever is available in space that will dictate what we make on earth as well as what we package and what we send on the next vehicle. Host: But I'm assuming you have plenty of food on the International Space Station, right, so they'll never -- there's a very low chance that they'll actually runout. Takiyah Sirmons: Yeah, they'll never be in a situation where they're running out of food, they may not have all the variety that they like. They might be down to peanut butter and something they don't necessarily like but they will never runout of food. It's set up so that they have a reserve of food at all times. Host: All right, so what's some of the more creative things you've seen astronauts do with the food because you said they are prepared in a way that you can just heat them up and eat them as is because they're already meals. But are they adding stuff together and -- I mean the chili mac and cheese sounds amazing. Takiyah Sirmons: It is amazing. Host: Yeah. Takiyah Sirmons: Oh gosh I guess they make a little bit of anything, we filmed a video a couple of months ago, we had two astronauts come in and show us some of their treats and I think I was the most blown away with the space smores. They a chocolate brownie I want to say they put peanut butter paste and then cookies on the outside and I was actually really impressed with the flavor of that. And that's not anything that I would have thought of but I guess if you're in space for six months and you've been eating the same food you kind of think of different ways to consumer it. Host: Wow, if you're going to snack in space you're going to snack right, the space smore that sounds amazing. Awesome, okay so we've been talking a lot about the International Space Station and it seems like we're in a system where we're still learning and you're learning how to do different things to make it as efficient as possible and it sounds like it's very efficient right now the way that food is delivered, eaten, the whole process. But for deep space what has to change and I'm assuming shelf life is at the top of that list but you know, we've already brought down the weight so much with the freeze drying capabilities but what do we have to do to prepare for a mission to deep space and to Mars? Takiyah Sirmons: Well, your right shelf life is our number one concern. We can make foods that last two years easily, that's what we've been doing for the International Space Station. When you start talking about going to Mars you're looking at a five-year shelf life. And that's because they're have been talks of prepositioning the foods, so we launch the food ahead of the crew. The crew travels, completes the mission and then we have to have food that will last to come back. And so no one has ever done a five-year shelf life, it's not something that's necessarily desired in industry because it doesn't make money, the quicker you can turn product over the better for our food company. And so no one is really testing out to five years and so that's been a challenge for us, not only quality wise but nutritionally. We have to make sure that vitamins are stable, vitamins and minerals are stable through the entire duration of the mission so that you don't have astronauts that are malnourished at the end of their stay on Mars. You know, so that's been a challenge, that's what we're looking at now, a lot of projects that have starting now are looking at the shelf life of food up to five years. Host: So I mean you can obviously store food for long periods of time, what about a growing food? Is the food lab a part of any experiments where you're talking about planting vegetables or something like that and growing them in a different environment? Takiyah Sirmons: Well, we're not growing plants at the food lab, a lot of that work is housed out of Kennedy Space Center in Florida. And so they are growing different dwarf vegetables with the expectation that that would supplement the foods system but not necessarily be the full menu. So we still have to have a standard menu that will provide the core amount of calories. And then there's a certain amount of food that you can grow to increase their variety. And so we've partnered with them on a couple of their projects, mainly for the sensory component so seeing whether or not those products taste good and whether or not consumers can tell the difference between a product that was grown in the greenhouse versus something that you would buy in the grocery store. And so we've done a little bit of work with them on that. Host: All right, all right that sounds awesome. Takiyah Sirmons: They can have a salad in space. Host: Yeah, cut up some fresh tomatoes or something. Takiyah Sirmons: They goes a long way, if they haven't had a salad in a while then you'd be very thrilled to have one in space. Host: That is true, they did something on International Space Station recently, right the veggie experiment. Some lettuce, Scott Kelly and Kjell Lindgren and some of those guys actually got to taste it up in orbit and they said it tasted like arugula. Takiyah Sirmons: Oh, okay, arugula is tasty. Host: So it would be good for a salad right, sprinkle a little arugula on a salad, I mean I'm imagining eggs benedict right now, I'm super hungry. Takiyah Sirmons: We're not there yet. Host: One, day, one day, oh okay all right so is there anything that you've learned you know, about astronauts, just anything new. I know taste buds maybe change but is there anything that they brought down with them from their experience on orbit that has kind of changed the way that. Or maybe not exactly changed the way but just added something to the way that you process food, make food, something like that. Takiyah Sirmons: I think the preparation component has changed a little bit, we're constantly getting feedback, like we mentioned before the amount of water that it takes to rehydrate a food item. We may get feedback that says hey when we were up there it took more than 15 minutes so you guys might want to look at your formula again. Or it didn't take that much water, I had to add water, so those are things that help us improve the products for the next crew that goes up. And so we're constantly depending on astronauts for their feedback so that we can optimize any formulas that we have in house. Host: All right, cool, all right I just know from talking to different astronauts their experience with making food and eating food and it's always visually just a cool thing to watch, right because they, a lot of them end up playing with their food. Takiyah Sirmons: Playing with your food. Host: It's a very cool thing to play with, right, they bring out the different colored candies and they flow. Yeah and they flow and they're making water bubbles and drinking that, I guess are all the drinks powdered and then they have to rehydrate. Takiyah Sirmons: Yes, every drink that we send whether it's coffee, coffee with sugar or just a hint of lemon, it goes in a powder form and then they add water to it. And all of our beverages have a clamp on them, it's to prevent that bubble from floating around in space but if you want to play with your food you just remove the clamp and then over time liquid will come through the straw and start to bubble at the top, so. Host: There you go. Takiyah Sirmons: Yeah the eating experience is very different, you have to think more about it when you're in space just to make sure you're not making a mess everywhere. Host: So I mean I should have asked about that, just drinking, just coming out of a pouch, you have a straw coming out of a pouch, you have to clamp the straw otherwise -- Takiyah Sirmons: It won't happen fast but eventually over time you'll start to see a large bubble at the top and if you're not watching it then that can fall off. Host: So the bubble appears at the top of the straw and then I guess. Takiyah Sirmons: Then you can play with it. Host: You can play with it, yeah but eating though I guess we talked about making and eating but we didn't really talk about the actual process of eating. So when you open up a package is the food flying out or does it stick to the inside of the package. Takiyah Sirmons: So surface tension will keep the food in the package, it will keep it on the fork, they all have metal utensils that they use and they just clean it with wipes after they're done with the food product. Because you can't have free water, they can't wash dishes but they can sanitize and clean them. The overall experience is a little different because number one your food is floating and then you're floating in space. And so when we package food we use vel coins on the back of every product and that's so that you can literally stick it to the wall and your food doesn't float away. And so say if you're snacking while you're doing something else, you have your food product there you have your beverage there and it's stuck to one place. You can't just sit it on the table and walk away, like we have the luxury here on earth, your product will be somewhere else. Somewhere else in the space station. Host: That's interesting, you called it a vel coin? Takiyah Sirmons: Yeah a small Velcro coin. Host: Okay, like a circular, so then it sticks to that and then the food is inside the package just with the surface tension. Takiyah Sirmons: Right it stays in the package it just makes sure your food is where you left it when you turn your back. Host: Okay. And then whenever you're scooping it out with your fork or spoon or whatever it's not sticking just because you know, when you think about soup is the first thing that comes to mind. You scoop your soup and it stays at the bottom of the spoon because of gravity but because if you're scooping I don't know they probably don't have soup, do they have soup? Takiyah Sirmons: No, they have a number of soup items. They have soup, some of them have solid pieces in them so they eat them with a spoon and then we have a couple of them that it's just more of a broth and so you can drink those with a straw. So they have a number of soup products. Host: And does it stick to the -- Takiyah Sirmons: It sticks to the spoon. Host: No way it sticks to the spoon, that's really cool, awesome. All right I have so many more questions I just want to make sure that I get them all. Okay, so you're sticking it to the wall and they have like a -- I'm throwing up some air quotes here, so a dinner table right, it's just a table that's kind of diagonally against the wall but they have like tape and Velcro on it right. Takiyah Sirmons: Yeah so they can stick their food product down. And it's still a communal experience, no one wants to eat alone, unless they decide to, we don't dictate that. Host: Sometimes they're busy right. Takiyah Sirmons: Sometimes they're just busy but I mean it is set up so they can at least have the community aspect of eating, breaking bread together. Host: Breaking bread, yeah all having a meal together, that's pretty awesome. Okay, do you notice that they eat together more often or do they kind of just rush eat? Takiyah Sirmons: That I actually don't know they choose to do it one way or another. And I imagine it will depend on their schedules as well as the crew member themselves. Host: I've seen sometimes where they have an experiment and it's too vital that kind of bleeds over into their lunch time and so their lunch time is pushed to a different time and it doesn't overlap with other crew members. Takiyah Sirmons: Yeah, so they don't always eat together. Host: I was just curious on what they do in those instances, I'm assuming they just like they rehydrate their package, go do some work, come get their package, eat along the way so -- Takiyah Sirmons: Just a normal day at the office, I've had those days. Host: It's just crazy, I noticed you know, some astronauts when I was talking to them sometimes they just take that stuff for granted right, like I forget who was saying but this is not necessarily food but obviously you know, you're floating your food over on the side and working. And you're not really thinking about it. But your food is floating right next to you. I guess eventually you get in a groove when you're up there for so long that there was one astronaut talking about working out. And you know the ARED, the advanced resistance exercise that simulates weight lifting, it's positioned right, I guess if you were looking at the configuration of the International Space Station above the cupola. So when you're working out and doing bench presses you just see the earth right down -- Takiyah Sirmons: It's a beautiful sight. Host: Above you I guess it depends on -- yeah and they're taking it for granted, like awe man this workout is really hard [cross-talk] I've seen that one before, you know. I'm sure that not all of them are like that but there comes a point where you know, you're doing the same thing. They're working out two and a half hours a day, every single day. So eventually you know, things get a little bit more repetitive and I can understand it, but still very, very cool. Takiyah Sirmons: They work out a lot so they have to eat a lot, they eat a lot than you would on earth, so. Host: Oh, they do, their calories are increased? Takiyah Sirmons: They have more calories on average, and a lot of that has to do with the fact that they're working out so much and then also it takes a little bit of energy to stay upright in zero gravity. We take for granted that when we sit in a chair we want to be sitting upright, whereas they're constantly bobbing and weaving. So they have to exert that energy to stay up right. Host: There's no real sitting right, they kind of like hook their feet underneath one of those hand rails and then they have to, yeah you're right they're bobbing because they have to stay in one position unless they kind of get their footing, right. Takiyah Sirmons: Yeah. Host: Interesting, do you notice that they come down, I guess this is kind of subjective but do they come down in better shape than they went up or worse shape or how does that change? Takiyah Sirmons: It kind of depends on the person, so NASA in general they take the health of the astronaut very seriously. Host: Of course. Takiyah Sirmons: And so that is part of the reason why they workout so much, that's to combat muscle loss as well as bone loss. And so they probably work out more than they would maybe on earth, depending on the person. We try to make sure that their food is nutritionally sound so that if you're someone who is not constantly paying attention to your diet before going into space it will be an improvement for you. But a lot of them are already very health conscious. So it really depends on the person and what state they were in before, but in general we don't notice those changes as much as we used to in the past. Host: I guess that's good, right because then there's not really negative -- well, you have counter measures against those negative things. Takiyah Sirmons: Right, right. Host: So you're eating healthy, you're exercising regularly so you come down. Takiyah Sirmons: To make sure you're in reasonably good health when you come back and that's an overall mission of the space program to make sure there aren't lasting effects of going into space. And obviously the more that we have astronauts in space, the more we learn and we try to combat those effects. Host: Right and the International Space Station is perfect for that right, it's like a big you know, it's a laboratory that you can practice this over and over and then if you go do another mission then you're well-prepared because you have all this data from collected from the International Space Station, very cool. Well, Takiyah I think that's about all the time we have for the listeners if you want to know more have a suggestion on what we should talk about stay tuned to after the music to learn how to submit those ideas. Takiyah thank you so much for coming it's always a pleasure talking to you, space food is one of my favorite things to talk about. And I know we were just talking beforehand but we might have to do another episode on the history of space food. Takiyah Sirmons: That would be very interesting. Host: Yes, okay and I'm sure there's more so we'll do another episode but thank you again, it's been an absolute pleasure. Takiyah Sirmons: Thank you. [ Music ] Host: Hey, thanks for sticking around, so today we talked with Dr. Takiyah Sirmons about space food and the space food that they make is mostly right now, well almost entirely, for the International Space Station. And you can see some of the pictures that some of the astronauts share of the food that they're eating on the International space Station by going to NASA.gov/ISS. We have a lot of blog posts and photos that we release regularly, some of them are about space food but you can also learn what's going on aboard the International Space Station like what experiments they're doing and some of the latest updates on what's being done onboard. On social media we're very active on Facebook it's International Space Station, Twitter at space underscore station and on Instagram is at ISS. If you use the hashtag ask NASA on anyone of those platforms and submit an idea or maybe a question for the show we'll make sure to address it in a later episode of Houston We have a Podcast. This podcast was recorded on July 5, 2017. Thanks to Alex Perryman, John Stoll and Bill Jesse and thanks again to Dr. Takiyah Sirmons for coming on the show. We'll be back next week.